The Constant
by ChloeRulz
Summary: A Post Day 5 AU: Weeks after being responsible for Jack Bauer's rescue from the Chinese, Chloe O'Brian finds herself made responsible for his recovery. Mature recovery situations and graphic sex. 2007 Winner Jack/Chloe Fan Fiction Awards. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

The Constant

Chapter One

Chloe O'Brian looked at the summons in her hand only long enough to roll her eyes and refold it. She was probably in trouble again, had said something to someone who thought she might benefit from another round of coaching on workplace relationships and teamwork. The only thing that made her wonder was that the notation at the bottom of the letter had also included Bill Buchanan and Audrey Raines. Great… it was probably a disciplinary hearing, too, although she had no idea what Audrey would have to do with that.

She saw them outside Doctor Winters' office when she finally got down to the psych department of the infirmary, Audrey in a navy blue skirt suit and Bill dressed in gray. Underdressed again, she thought, not particularly concerned about it. The screens didn't have eyes and unless she was an algorithm neither did most of the people in her dept. Her plain tan slacks and pink sweater suited her just fine. It was always cold at CTU.

Bill turned to acknowledge her when she got close enough, worrying at the edges of the meeting summons. "Good to see you. How's the refit going?"

"Done, just tuning things up." Her eyes went from Buchanan and back to the still guarded high-security section of the clinic.

Audrey's gaze met her halfway there. "I think this is about Jack."

Chloe's eyebrows quirked then. Six weeks had passed since Chloe had found the freighter that had been Jack's home for three hellish weeks. Four ships had left the port of Los Angeles the day he had brought down a president and then disappeared. A quick report on a freighter's usual crew compliment and an infrared scan that told them which one was exceeding it had found him home as soon as they could get the warships in place. They had managed to seize it in international waters as it plowed westward. Freighters tended to pause when confronted with an aircraft carrier and its escort fleet, no matter what they were hiding.

There had been a protest, of course. The Chinese government had denied everything, blamed Jack Bauer's bloodied presence on a powerful, soon-to-be prosecuted Asian mafia, and had spent the next several weeks trying to hack CTU's systems. CTU had finally filled them full of World War II tactical data and let the Chinese in, gathered evidence to blackmail them internationally, and then set up a new network. In the meantime, as Chloe worked to build the system from scratch, along her own appropriately paranoid protocols, Jack had recovered, physically at least, but had yet to be allowed more than a semi-conscious state. He had attacked two doctors and nearly killed Nurse Takamura when someone had thoughtlessly put her on the rotation schedule. Bauer hadn't known his own remaining strength.

Doctor Winters arrived in a swirl of the usual white coat, her ice-blond hair piled in a knot, her green pantsuit flashing out as she took long strides toward them. "I'm glad you're all here. I'm sorry I'm late."

Audrey dismissed her with a flip of the hand. "It's okay. Is this about Jack… Jack Bauer?"

The doctor focused laser-blue eyes on her and looked uncomfortable for several seconds. "Let's go inside."

She lead the way into a small office and through its glass wall they could just barely see Jack, laying peacefully as he had been for the past weeks, carefully tended, shaved and clean, still however, in restraints because there were times the drugs couldn't stop the nightmares. Audrey made a point of sitting down with her back to him so that she could focus.

Buchanan looked the doctor directly also. She had been brought in specifically for Bauer, the world's leading traumatic stress specialist. She had taken charge of his treatment at CTU where he was being kept until a way could be found to fully protect him from the Chinese. The scandal of Logan calling them, all of which had been recorded and intercepted at their end was proving a very powerful negotiating tool. "You don't look happy. I take it Jack Bauer isn't about to make a full recovery?"

The doctor gave Audrey Raines another uncomfortable look before answering. "Actually no, there is every reason he should. The wounds he suffered were consistent with someone who was to be kept alive but under control, painful and disorienting but not permanently debilitating. Physically, he's mostly healed but very weak from atrophy. Fighting the restraints when he does sleep hardly keeps him active enough, although sometimes it seems it would. I've called you all here because I am going to suggest something be done that is a bit radical. My hesitance is because this involves a personal matter for Miss Raines and a personal involvement for Miss O'Brian."

Audrey glanced at the others in the room and opened her mouth to speak. When she said nothing Chloe took up the chance. "Why am I here though? I can only help Jack if you're talking about setting him up with a new identity and right now he just needs help just sitting up."

Winters turned her attention on Chloe and suddenly seemed much more at ease. "That's not really true. In preparing what I've decided to recommend for Mr. Bauer, you are actually the key."

Chloe stared at her, speechless for once; Audrey, however, recovered her voice in that moment. "Chloe? No offense to their friendship and all that Chloe's done before now and to find Jack but he and I are… involved. I would think---."

The doctor raised her hand slightly. "That's just the problem actually. Miss Raines, I'm afraid I can't go on without embarrassing you considerably."

Audrey took a quick look at the blond man several yards away through two glass walls. "You don't know what we've all been through together, Doctor. I have no secrets from these people."

The doctor's voice was measured and distant suddenly, accepting the other woman's words. "All right… I do have some idea what all of you have shared. I was given the clearance to know all of what Mr. Bauer has done and experienced the past several years, otherwise I couldn't begin to help. I'm aware that it was found out two months ago that you had an affair with a certain Walt Cummings, a disgraced White House official."

Audrey folded her arms across her middle tightly. "That's right. Jack and I were involved but he led me to believe he was dead. I didn't think much beyond the moment when Walt happened."

"And even under intense interrogation, you lied about it to Mr. Bauer for a relatively long time, in a situation which resulted in his using some level of force against you."

Audrey looked at the floor and then met the doctor's eye. "All that is true. I had my reasons."

The other woman's voice was not without compassion. "We're all Human, Miss Raines. I'm sure you did but by the same token, whatever it cost you, it cost Mr. Bauer twice. First, it provided a reality wherein you would lie to him up to a point about something as trivial as a one-night liaison with national security at stake and the assassination of President Palmer involved, second, he was forced to deal with you by severe means to finally get to that truth. Under interrogation, he was compelled to assault you, a woman he had had relations with, all for the fact that you were embarrassed about a dalliance. I'm sure he's forgiven you consciously but the doubts are still there and they could affect what I have in mind."

Bill rested a hand on Audrey's shaking one as the past resurfaced and worse, seemed about to interfere with anything she might do for Jack. The sight of her interrogation was a wound to all of them yet and pushing Jack as she had with her silence had now damaged him more deeply than the crude and comparatively insignificant truth. "You still haven't said what you think will help him." She returned her focus to Jack after a moment of self-recrimination, tears stinging her eyes.

The doctor nodded and folded her hands in front of her. "It's simple, some might say too simple, but I've had it work before now for returning agents who have been under long term deep covers and lost touch with who they had been. It's something I labeled "trust immersion". Mr. Buchanan, I need you to grant Mr. Bauer a leave of absence, length to be determined and paid, – on medical reasons, him and one other person."

"If you think this'll work, of course, but to whom else--?" The moment he asked the question he knew the answer, so did Chloe O'Brian by the way she suddenly sat up in the chair and looked from her three colleagues to Bauer's inert form and back again.

"Me. That's why I'm here."

Winters nodded, a slight pout on her face. "I've looked through your file, his, and the entirety of your history. If this might work at all, Miss O'Brian, you have the best chance of anchoring him back. You've faced danger with him, stood with him when no one else could, more importantly… when no one else… would. You've broken the rules, even broken federal laws, been arrested more than once. Through several extraordinary circumstances, you have been his only constant."

Chloe blushed and kept her eyes away from the others. "I did those things because I knew Jack was right. I wasn't trying to be something I wasn't… to him or anybody else."

"But you did those things in an atmosphere of absolute trust, at cost to your career, even possibly your freedom. Your assistance allowed Mr. Bauer to function effectively in the face of what would have seemed impossible odds and I'm hoping to build on that."

"You already said all that," Chloe snapped. "And you could have told me all this without a damn audience."

Winters sighed and realized mutely she was correct. "I'm sorry. I should have but I was primarily interested in expedience. Mr. Bauer is losing time in a sort of suspended reality, and I know he's not a man who would appreciate that; he fought too hard to control his heroin addiction. I apologize to all of you."

The doctor paused to smile and then directed her attention to O'Brian again. "Those times you took risks, you trusted him but more importantly now, he trusted and trusts you. You don't tell someone you don't rely on without question that you're going after the President of the United States."

"Logan was piece of crap. We knew how it was going to end." Chloe countered, still irritated even if Winters had made a solid case.

"Even so, beyond all that, I know something else that you wouldn't have reason to know." Winters glanced at Bauer and back again at the slender young woman before her who only preferred blunt truths. Knowing that made things easier. "You've been in to see Mr. Bauer several times and I've monitored him after every visitor. Your visits are the only time his EEG readings back off. You even register subconsciously to him as a reassuring presence. In the past when he's heard your voice, you were telling him what he needed to survive."

Chloe scowled uncomfortably and wished the floor would either swallow herself or Audrey Raines. She could feel her face overheating. "Meaning?"

"His dreaming cycle enters a less agitated state when you've talked to him, even about some of the threats he's now missing. His pressure drops, his heart rate declines. Those changes don't even occur when his daughter is here."

Chloe shrugged and looked back at Jack, suddenly doing the next best thing she was good at after computers, not caring what anyone else thought. She did now, however, have another new reason to avoid looking at the suddenly silent Raines. "So, what do I do?"

Winters stood up and gestured them all toward the door, offering a distant but polite smile to Audrey. Her face as red as Chloe's, she was now was wishing for the same geologic event. They stared at the floor when they stood next to one another and jostled out the doorway. The doctor didn't answer the computer analyst's lingering question but separated her from the others with a hand on her arm. Audrey turned as Chloe stopped moving with them and looked back, tears forming in her eyes.

"Whatever she says, Chloe, do what's best for Jack. It's what he'd do for us and this isn't about anyone else."

Chloe wanted to smile, to offer her co-worker reassurance. Instead, she could only nod, shrug, and not look her in the eye. "Yeah, fine. It'll be fine. We'll talk. Tell Kim we're trying something else, but not… you know… that I'm the only…" Chloe sighed and turned back to the doctor, not wanting to see Buchanan hurrying Audrey off before the scene could continue. "Okay, Doc', now that you've done a number on my stress, what am I supposed to do?"

The other woman steered her down the corridor and into Jack's room, to his bedside. Chloe tried not to take the opportunity to stare, didn't want the sudden responsibility, didn't want the time off, didn't want her hand to reach for his through the blue sheet but that happened, too. "If you're ready, I'm going to give him something to wake him up, very slowly, but you'll be the only one here. He might react strongly even just with you and he'll be disoriented and nauseated. I suspect he's woken up several times in that condition under unfriendly circumstances."

"Yeah, fine." Chloe didn't look up from Bauer's face. His hand was warming in hers. "Just get on with it. You probably just fixed it so he's the only friend I have left."

Winters knew O'Brian well enough now to ignore the comment. "Again, he's weak but he might be violent."

Chloe said nothing this time and realizing there was nothing left to say Dr. Winters inserted the stimulant into the IV feed and patted Chloe's arm as she went past. "Thank you. This could be everything for him."

"No pressure, right?" A look of apology twitched her face then. "Sorry. You better go."

"I'll be observing in the next room, through that one-way glass." She pointed at the wall opposite the one that faced her office but Chloe didn't look up. When Doctor Winters reached the other side of it, she found Bill Buchanan waiting for her but Audrey Raines nowhere in sight. Buchanan frowned with alarm as he watched Chloe sit down next to Jack on the bed, lift his arm onto her leg and after a long, thoughtful moment, carefully begin removing the restraints. "Should she be doing that?"

Winters said nothing for a heartbeat, watching as Chloe released his ankles and then his other hand, folding his arms over his chest. "Probably not, if he isn't a danger to her he is possibly still a danger to himself disoriented. The last thing we need is for him to start off dealing with her in a combative state but… beyond this point, it's no longer my call. It's up to them and whatever's between them."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Chloe took her eyes of Jack long enough to glance longingly at the phone. This would all be so much easier if she could just talk him through it with a hunk of technology in her hand, except, of course, Jack was incapable of holding one and she still didn't know what to say. She knew one thing, waking up in restraints, even padded ones, was not the way to bring him back to reality. He'd be a bigger danger to himself if he thought more of what the Chinese had done to him was coming. No amount of reassurance was going to be as convincing as the fact he could move.

She jumped when he did, just tightened his right hand more closely to his chest, but with too many years spent in front of computers, her eyes went to the monitor next to the bed. She knew his heart was beating faster compared to when she had first come in; her analyst's eye had taken an absent snap-shot of the readings. She looked from the small display to the leads running to it and scowled. He wasn't going to understand all that business either. Knowing she should move before he roused further, she lifted his arm again and undid the blood pressure cuff, then slid deft fingers down the front of his gown and released the sensor leads attached to his chest. Winters had said she was only monitoring him; they weren't serving any critical process. Jack stirred again as she did, more strongly. His breathing deepened and a trace of color began to darken his drawn face.

Bill Buchanan scowled ironically at his lead analyst. "Of all people to disconnect a computer."

Gwyneth Winters' expression remained neutral, her voice edged toward approval however, contrasting the head of CTU's. "I think… she knows what she's doing. He's going to wake up warm, comfortable, out of pain and most importantly: free. I thought she might do this. When I've had other trustees engaged in this, they usually do."

"And that turned out how?"

"Depending on the depth of residual psychoses anywhere from borderline euphoria to catastrophe. The trust element mitigates the paranoia but not the sudden fear that they've brought their trustee into danger also. Forgetting four weeks of beatings, sensory deprivation, attempts at brainwashing, etc, there are also the other …" Winters stopped herself and shook her head. "Never mind, where I was going was that, assuming she might fully release him and that they weren't personally involved before now, I ordered his catheters removed this morning. She wouldn't have had the comfort zone to disengage those."

Bill nodded and said nothing, his lip jutting slightly as he watched Chloe sit back and tentatively lay a hand on Jack's arm, not wanting to restrict his hands even to hold one.

Chloe looked at the phone on the wall again and realized what was missing, the element that linked them most often, their voices, but right now only hers was operational. "Jack, it's me. It's Chloe. No phones this time."

Eyes still closed, he nevertheless turned his head in the direction of her voice and stilled, either at peace or straining to hear more of what was ironically so close and his at no effort regardless. Chloe frowned and wondered if he had fallen back to sleep more deeply, drug or no drug. "Jack, don't do this. You gotta' get back here. The world still sucks. Big surprise." She smiled herself at that. Work, that's what they talked about, bad guys, satellites, infrareds like the ones she had used to find him. Chloe sat down on the bed again, suddenly realizing how much weight Jack seemed to have lost. "Okay, Mr. Field Agent, here's the deal. You got a life to save, yours, and me to get out of this mess with your girlfriend. I usually don't care if someone hates my guts but I care if I can't do my job. Come on, Jack, wake up, everything's okay out here now, a lot better than in there, I bet."

Chloe leaned forward and awkwardly began brushing his hair back, suddenly wishing there was no one watching them. It wasn't privacy for the two of them she wanted, just privacy for him. He'd been a thing to use and abuse for the Chinese for weeks, no privacy, no dignity, and then here, whether it was for his own good or not, poked, prodded, injected, and finally drugged to keep him from harming himself while they worked out what to do. Now that they had and she was part of it, she didn't want to be one of the people who were part of his being on display. Bauer was the most private person she knew. For no other reason, she suddenly wished they were alone.

"Jack, come on. It's me. We won this one, too, but you gotta' finish it. Hassan's getting ready to move on a U.N. summit and two new cells we can't find in Houston need somebody to set up an undercover profile. I give 'em paperwork but you can make them real. I can't tell you anymore until you get your classification updated then I can stop putting up with these kids who don't know a Level One from a ---." Her eyes intent on his face, Chloe O'Brian instantly fell silent when Bauer's eyes opened, if only to slits, pained by the light, glassy even by what little she could see, and suddenly watering. Chloe froze, letting him adjust on his own time, taking a slight gasp of air nearly thirty seconds later, her breath having locked in her lungs. She still didn't speak but she did move her thumb above Jack's scarred eyebrow. His eyes closed again but he turned toward the touch and she took her cue.

"Jack, it's over. We found you. You gotta' focus."

Chloe scowled as his breathing quickened, too fast now, and a hand shot up to grab her wrist. She could have evaded him, could have twisted free and fought his arm down in his weakened state. Instead she let him grab her and winced just a bit. His strength hadn't left him completely. It was the realization that he even could that stopped him, just as she'd hoped. Jack kept hold of the analyst's arm and sought her face with still-blurred vision. His head was pounding and he wanted to throw up. He was sick again, so sick it didn't matter if he were free. He rolled over instinctively, however, as the bile rose in his throat, fear he would choke overcoming hope that he might.

Chloe slid off the bed but stayed close to Jack, grabbing a bowl and holding it as he threw up little more than acidic bile and fell back gasping and dry heaving until he was too weak to continue. There were tears on his face and thin traces of vomit, and he was still gasping for air. One thing hadn't changed in the last few seconds, however, his grip on Chloe's wrist never weakened for what it was worth. Chloe made sure it remained in his hand as she took the water pitcher off the table and used its still cool contents to clumsily soak corner of the cotton blanket. She used the wet section of cloth to wipe Jack's face, last of all his mouth.

"Jack, it's over, please. You don't have to fight. Do you know who I am?"

Jack Bauer looked up at the woman before him. He'd not seen a blond before now. The Asian woman with the geisha outfit and the long needles had been the only female he'd seen. His legs closed reflexively at the memory and he realized he could move them, too; he was free. The cold cloth touched him again as his knees curled upward as far as he could manage; his grip on the wrist of the stranger tightened and he heard a frustrated puff of air.

"Jack, hold onto me just not so tight. I can't help you." Chloe flapped the wet end of the blanket in the air to cool the soaked fibers. She had soaked a new corner, drawn from the bottom of the bed. She stroked him with it again, his face, his neck. She stayed away from his throat. "I guess I'm going to have to keep talking. That's okay, you're the only person I haven't totally pissed off in two months, pretty weird since you're the one who gets me in most of the trouble." She smiled lopsidedly and kept stroking him with the wet fabric. He was hot, she could see that, on top of everything else, his system awash with adrenalin without being able to exert it away.

Jack listened to the voice above him, no word of threat passing the lips that gave form to it. He fought relaxing. He was free, he should find a way to fight. He had hold of someone but they weren't fighting back. There was no way to use their own force against them, besides if he didn't stay quiet they might stop with the cold cloth. It was the first pleasant thing he had felt in weeks. First there had been pain, and then numbness that brought a hazed fear he had been forcibly trapped by the heroin again. Nothing like this. The voice was a woman's. She wanted something. The tone was calm but needy, edged with an emotion that he knew well: fear. Whoever was with him, she was afraid, too. They just hadn't harmed her yet or she was a trick. He knew what they would do to break him.

Individual words began to emerge from the flow of quiet chatter. Protocol. Satellites. Reroute. Directive. Phrases came next, "regrouped and retreated", "realigned the southern grid", "not as easy as when", … and then … then 'and I still miss Edgar so bad." A shock wave erupted through Jack Bauer that shredded the slowly fading fog of his perceptions. He opened his eyes again; someone had gotten rid of the blinding light but the new darkness made things difficult in its own way. All he could make out was a slender figure, her arm held at an awkward angle, and a softly lit outline of dark gold hair. He pulled her forward, and she moved easily but then had to balance herself by leaning on the bed. The cool cloth in her other hand landed near his shoulder, another tiny touch of comfort he didn't dare believe. Jack Bauer worked to focus, as the woman kept begging of him, her voice calm, insistent, and familiar, growing more so as the seconds passed and traces of frustration and impatience began to color it.

Chloe was still leaning over Jack with some awkwardness when the moment came, when he let go of her arm and clutched her face, and then her name escaped his lips in a terrified gasp.

She covered his hand with her own and nodded, unaware of her tears. "Yeah, it's me, Jack We found you."

The tortured blue eyes left her face long enough to take in the cold, sterile, darkened surroundings without comprehension. 'They got you. I'm sorry. I broke. I led them to ---."

"No, you didn't. Jack, listen to me." Chloe returned his grip on her jaw, taking his face in her hands and sitting down. "You listen. No one's got hold of me. You're home. We… I found you. Curtis and the Navy got you. We're in CTU, the infirmary."

He continued staring at her, unable to put so much together as yet. Chloe released one hand and picked up the wet corner of the bed cover, stroking him with it again, hoping it would help him focus. "Okay, Jack, then just one thing at a time. Trust me; we're free. Nobody's got us. If someone had us both, would I be alive? They wouldn't have put up with me for five seconds."

Jack stared up at the woman holding his head and cooling his fevered skin, wearing the face of a woman who had never once lied to him, had committed high treason with him, who had put the first shots in the man who had killed one of his best friends. She'd been arrested for him, undermined her own ambitions for him, lost her best friend in front him, and then saved their lives when he'd pulled her together. This was the woman who had enabled him to destroy a President. If she said they were safe, if she said they were was free, it was true. … and on top of it all, she was trying to make him smile by telling him the truth again. She would have been the world's worst hostage.

Chloe was glad he'd lost a little weight. Jack summoned the strength to pull himself up on the edge of the bed and when that strength was immediately gone sagged into her chest, crying without shame, not noticing she was crying as well. She stroked his back and his sweat-matted hair but made no effort to stop him. "Don't cry" was about the stupidest thing she could think of to say and totally hypocritical at the moment. He was too exhausted to do it for long, however, too weak and dehydrated, even with the IV line that was the one thing she hadn't removed.

Chloe left him long enough to cross the room, refill the pitcher and pick up a glass. She held his head and forced him to take it slowly, mindless, familiar complaints and office gossip they never usually repeated spewing from her, hoping she could divert his attention from his own state and her discomfort. If Jack was uncomfortable for the same reason he gave no sign, a shaky, almost-smile on his lips. Chloe guided him back down and he was content to let her support his head and lift his legs back onto the bed; it was now no tormentor or even a stranger who was touching him, the person who so watched over him from afar was now simply watching over him here.

Chloe O'Brian wasn't exactly the most nurturing person on the planet but she had the presence of mind to toss off the white cotton blanket with the soaked corners and pull the blue sheet back up over him as he lay on his side. Her awareness of what was going on around her was at peak however, enhanced by the fact that Jack was out of commission. Chloe immediately saw the doctor when she came to stand on the far side of the room, beckoning to her, about an hour later, just as she had begun to wonder how long she was going to be watching Jack sleep and if they could just run a computer line in here for her. She smirked as she stood up to cross the room; if Jack would to find anything reassuring, it would be the sight of her fingers flying over a keyboard and swiping around a mouse. Closing the distance, O'Brian saw that the doctor was alone.

"Where's Mr. Buchanan?" Chloe asked, her voice instinctively low.

"He left to brief Ms. Raines and a few others. You did very well, Miss O'Brian, although I had my doubts about the chance you took releasing the restraints. He did better than I thought in terms of his response. I'm going to revise my expectation for the next few days."

Chloe's eyes flashed upwards. "Well, who'd want to wake up tied up after all that or at all?" She glanced back at Bauer and folded her arms over the pink sweater. "So, what comes next?"

Winters folded her clipboard against her chest and gave her patient a considering look, using her focus to keep Chloe O'Brian's on Bauer as she summoned up the nerve for the next suggestion. As uncomfortable as she'd been around Audrey Raines before, well… , she could only hope Raines would eventually understand the method of what she would think madness. Right now she needed O'Brian to understand much sooner. "Jack needs to find his equilibrium, to learn to function again in the rest of the world, to reconnect with his sense of self and his very well-honed instincts, providing, of course, he wants to remain in this professional field. It would be understandable if he wanted to retreat from a job that makes him and his acquaintances targets."

Chloe nodded once and sharply. "Well, Jack will do what he wants. That's up to him but you're not answering me again."

Winters rebuked herself for fencing around the woman before her. It was unprofessional but she was only hesitant because of the personal complications that the job she was to ask of O'Brian would certainly create. "You're right, I didn't, and in and of itself, what we need is not that extraordinary. I just want you to spend the next several days with Mr. Bauer, helping him to reattach himself to his surroundings, grounding him. Eventually, once he asks, we'll bring his daughter to see him but not yet. He needs… simplicity for now, not the intense complications of their relationship. He needs a situation without any doubt associated with it. When he's ready, Wayne Palmer has also put in a request to visit, as have Aaron Pierce and Martha Logan. They've all been very concerned. They lobbied to use the extraordinary means to retake Jack Bauer, I think seeing them would do him a great deal of good once you and he think he's ready."

"Me… again. Aren't you the shrink?"

"You, Miss O'Brian. Jack is going to be unsure about anyone else, or too caught up trying to be everything to everyone, making them believe he's fine, especially me. I'm his "captor" as it were for now. With you he can doesn't have complications. You've seen him at his best and his worst and you don't judge and over the past few weeks, you were the one friend not used against him because you never became a public figure in all of this."

Chloe felt suddenly sick herself. She knew about the altered voice recordings, played at Jack while they deprived him of sleep, of food, of sight, of balance, of everything but pain and mocking voices of friends telling him he would break or that he had. Martha Logan had become a huge public figure, lauded for unseating her corrupt husband and glad to talk about it, all over the media the first week of Jack's capture. There had been plenty to alter. The same for Wayne Palmer after his brother's assassination, and to a lesser degree Aaron Pierce. He was making public appearances with the now ex-Mrs. Logan. He didn't talk much but he had talked enough for them to use a trusted friend's voice against Jack Bauer's tormented mind as it coped with a battered body. And, of course, they had found the "recording" of President Palmer asking how Jack could have let someone kill him.

Chloe rubbed the remnants of tears and fresh ones from her face, her lips giving a savage twist. "Crap. Okay, so I'm persona non gratta with the Chinese, good for me, good for Jack. That means what? How am I supposed to help?"

Winters took the plunge. "We've set up a safe-house, less than a mile from here. We want you to stay with Jack, just the two of you. We want you to remind him of his friends, and show him the reports on how he and they were used. I've laid out a sort of guideline for you, but you should rely on your instincts just as much. I'll also be available to you anytime, along with a pair of guards trained to handle persons with violent potential. I'll give you both a few days and then I'll start seeing him."

Chloe leaned back on the bed near the door. "Ditch the goons. Jack's not gonna' hurt me," she replied, not snapping now, just sure. It took her a moment more to backtrack the pieces prior to the remark about the guards. "Wait, a minute, hold on, you want me to live with Jack, not just… visit long?"

Winters frowned and raised a finger to her lips as Chloe's voice rose. "Not in those terms, no. It would be no more than simply staying with a very troubled friend. In fact that's all it is. Toward the later stages, if he makes any indication that he'd be receptive to sex, it probably wouldn't be in his best interest, not coming out of a radical dependency."

Chloe's temper got the better of her in half the instant it usually took. "I wouldn't use something like this for sex, especially not with Jack. That's why you picked me, right? What kind of a quack are you?"

Winters bit her tongue, knowing what she was asking was extraordinary and admitting to herself she had misjudged the need to say what she had. However…. "Miss O'Brian, what I am is the best qualified… quack in the world to help him. And your response was exactly what I assumed. You're not going to create or engage in any situation that would compromise him, even if it's something he starts. He'll trust you if you back out of it or guide him to do so. In any case, after some days, we'll start trying to bring others back into his equation."

Chloe looked back at Jack Bauer and suddenly knew his life was in her hands. Good thing she was used to it. She'd just never thought of it happening as more than keys, screens, and bandwidth, never allowed herself to do so. She didn't think about the string of hokey men in dangerous professions who floated in and out of her life and were jerks or weren't jerks and got pegged it anyway. "Okay, I'll do what he needs, but get me a computer with full protocols in this safe-house and a secure link. He's going to be sleeping a lot I'd guess and I'm not some moony school girl who's gonna' sit and stare at him while he does. I've got a head full of current tactical on two operations that are set to go live in days."

"All right. We can do that, in fact, in fact it might be good for Jack to see you in action but if something happens that induces a stress reaction as a result of ---."

"I'll run a slave protocol on my computer and do a simultaneous feedback with somebody I pick at CTU. If Jack gets upset, I'll run a dual parameter, pull the plug at my end and transfer the operation. I need to uplink my take on both ops but I'm not gonna' compromise anybody."

Gwyneth Winters smiled. "I can see why you and Jack integrate so well. Stay with him now, let him get some natural sleep and I'll look him over once he wakes up, nothing intrusive. I'll want you to be here though. He'll find most of the physical damage we've relieved or healed and then I'll brief him about what we'd like to do and that you want to go along with it."

"If he says "no", I won't let you use my agreement with this against him." Chloe O'Brian gave the other woman a look that would have dropped a bull elephant but in return received only a confident smile.

"That's why you can help him, Miss O'Brian. Any last concerns?"

Chloe glanced at Jack again and then out into the dark steel corridor. "Three: call me Chloe, then send someone go to my apartment and pick up my "Harry Potter" books and, I won't be there when you tell Audrey Raines, got it?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chloe O'Brian stood with her back to Jack Bauer for a full thirty seconds after the door clicked shut and Gwen Winters was no longer in view. Eventually a rough and familiar hand took hold of the cuff of her sweater for a moment; she slowly turned as Jack's arm fell away. His eyes were closed but a ghost of a smile was on his lips. He took a breath and turned toward her slightly, preparing himself to speak with a labored breath. "It's only the two of us now. I can't ask or expect you to do this. Winters was perfectly clear how much trouble I'm going to be and I'm not any sort of obligation as far as you're concerned."

Chloe sat down on the bed and drew her knee up under her chin, glad for a moment that his eyes were closed as a scowl crossed her face. She dimmed the portable light that had been pulled down from the overhead array. "Look at me, Jack. Just for a second." She knew he still had a headache, that the light had hurt his eyes but Winters had needed it to examine him. When their gazes met, Chloe drew up her chin. "Just the fact you trust me enough to try this means I owe you. I mean… I knew you trusted me but not…" her voice trailed off for a moment.

"Not enough to see me at my worst and not just hear me?" He smiled weakly. "Did you think I wasn't noticing when you were breaking the rules, sometimes the law?"

"No, of course I didn't but we were only doing the right thing. Everybody found that out once it was all over."

"Maybe, but we're not talking about who knew things in the end, we're talking about you taking the chance from the start. It meant a lot and I've never told you the way I should. I'm sorry this was what it took for me to do the right thing by you." He took another exhausted breath and a single tear appeared from the corner of his eye. Chloe brushed at it with the back of her fingers, her head still turned away. She didn't want him to see how pained she was for him, that he was an obligation to her but one she would gladly accept as long as he believed it would help him, Winters had made a convincing case, thankfully without dragging Audrey into it, but she had also been honest in relaying the extent of Bauer's reliance would be on her physically. She had also explained to Chloe privately the starkness of the dependence was to reinforce the feelings of trust, to make his recovery ultimately more effective no matter how uncomfortable some of the situations might be.

"I knew, Jack. I mean, you gave up your new life, you gave up your second chance the minute I told you I was in danger the day David Palmer was killed and I knew you would when I called; I knew you'd find a way to save me even though you were so far away. So, I figure, I do owe you, for my life and the one you gave up. A couple of rough days with you after what you've done, do you really think I'd mind?"

It was Bauer's turn to look away, unable to cope with the outpouring. Chloe was normally direct, sometimes terse, even with him; the speech was his undoing, removing his last doubts that she was willing to take on putting the pieces of Jack Bauer back together. New tears on his face, he turned back and caught the hand that was wiping his cheek while the tears slid down her own. "We'll do this then. Please,… help me."

Chloe felt the breath leave her body and the tension as well, as if the sharp need of his words had pierced the swelling anxiety. She was relieved more than anything else; she had doubted she could do him as much good as Winters thought until now. She wasn't a verbose person and she doubted Jack needed to dwell on the draining emotions they were both feeling. Shaking herself mentally, she went back to familiar territory. "Okay, we'll do this but I'm just warning you ahead of time I'll probably screw up… a lot."

Jack's eyes closed again. "Good, I'm counting on it. I'm sick of people who think they know everything and are damn sure I'm going to think they do, too."

Chloe frowned with anger and then felt a small smile pull at her mouth. She guessed his acceptance meant she had won the first argument. She took out her cell phone and looked at the clock. "Jack, Curtis'll be here in half an hour to take us to the safe-house. You, uh, you need to get dressed."

Jack opened his eyes and followed her forward, back out of their comfort zone. "I guess it'll be a while before I can throw myself together in ten minutes and head somewhere with Curtis. I should at least be a little presentable when I see him, let him know I'm not the same rat he pulled off a real sinking ship." Chloe helped him to sit up; the strength of her grip was unsurprising but it was just as gentle. Her hand remained open under his arm, supporting without taking hold of him, as if she feared a firmer grasp would be too much of a reminder of being dragged bodily from one nightmare to the next. Head down, he held onto the edge of the bed and breathed harshly until she told him to slow down. "This is ridiculous," he finally muttered, not looking up from his bare knees.

Chloe retrieved the small pile of clothing from the next bed over once she was sure he wasn't about to fall. "You're alive, to some people that's ridiculous. Give yourself some time." She caught her lower lip in her teeth for a moment. "Sorry, you don't need me telling you what to do."

For the first time in two months, Jack Bauer managed an actual smile. "Apparently, I do," he replied. Chloe then managed to return it as she approached him and tossed the clothes down on the twisted blue sheets, noticing with a sudden kick in her gut that the top piece was a pair of white briefs. The part of her brain that was cold and analytical saved her and took over. Jack had survived weeks of sustained torture; she could survive helping him deal with underwear, especially in light of their last few minutes. She picked up the cotton briefs and knelt down in front of him to guide them up his legs as far she could, then stood up and slid her flattened hand beneath his arm again.

"Can you stand?"

"I think so." His voice was low and gruff; he was talking to the wall to his right. Bracing himself on the bed, he carefully lowered himself to the black tile floor and felt his own feet under him for the first time in weeks. The relief was a great compensation for the fact that Chloe was now reaching under the gown to pull up his shorts. As her hands left his hips he slid back to lean on the bed and she steadied him before circling around to the other side of it and, lip firmly in teeth, leaned over the bed to untie the strings of the gown. It fell open and slid down his arms; he managed to pull it the rest of the way off without threatening his balance as she came back around to his side and picked up the dark blue sweatshirt. Chloe hesitated, wondering if he needed a break. He didn't or wouldn't admit it and she helped him into the heavy material and tugged it gently into place. The pants were trickier, of course. They repeated the process of his sitting back on the bed and then standing back up, except that this time he held onto her shoulders as she tied the drawstring just barely tight enough to keep them from falling off.

Chloe scowled up at the one-way glass over his head then looked at her phone again as he returned to the bed holding onto her other arm. It had taken them the better part of twenty minutes to get him dressed. Out of his sight, Chloe rolled her eyes and wondered at the next few weeks. Her thoughts were cut off by the arrival of Curtis Manning, who was in sweats himself and pushing a wheelchair. Chloe wondered if the clothing thing was intentional, a way of making Jack feel like he was still part of the team. She was going to have to tell Bauer at some point that he'd been reinstated by Secretary of Defense Heller as a means to pay his medical expenses. Winters didn't come cheap, apparently, to say nothing of round-the-clock care and, now, apparently her own paid leave. At a guess, however, Curtis was here on his day off.

Jack managed a smile for him easily and after a moment stood unaided, shaking the hand of the man who had carried him out of a nightmare over his shoulders and hadn't left his side until he was receiving the best care possible and was finally free of pain. He hadn't the strength to speak to him until now but his first attempt ended in a choking sound and a two-handed grip by both men that needed no words regardless. Jack gathered himself after a moment and wished there weren't tears on his face. "I don't know what to say."

Curtis shook his head slowly. "How about in a few weeks I'll be backing your butt up again?" The two men shared a quiet laugh before Curtis released Jack's hands and helped him into the chair. "I secured this safe-house myself, Jack, put my best people on the guard points and overlapped two security grids but there are no monitors inside. You have complete privacy. As for the rest, all of it is redundant because there's no way anyone will know where you are. There's no record of this safehouse anywhere. If it doesn't exist it can't be mined and if we told every decent citizen in this country that was where you were, three hundred million people would be watching your back."

Jack's head dropped and shook dismissively. "Logan had it coming, it just came from us."

Curtis dropped down to one knee and drew Jack's attention. "That still doesn't mean you don't owe me a favor."

That got the other man's attention; Jack sat up with a sincerity on his face so raw that Curtis regretted the opening he'd made. "Anything."

Curtis's face split into a grin insincere enough to undo Jack's overwhelming sense of obligation. "When you cut the deal, can you get them to have Denzel Washington play me in the movie?"

For the first time again in months, Jack Bauer found himself laughing, laughing until he was too tired to go on. He was almost asleep again by the time Curtis and Chloe had taken him through the underground tunnel into the basement of the apartment building and up to the eighth floor apartment. Bulletproof glass, two layers of it, gave them a view overlooking the night skyline of Los Angeles, an infinite scattering of lights and half-lit shapes. Strings of head and tail lights drifted through the twinkling tapestry. It looked peaceful, idiotically peaceful. Curtis stopped pushing the wheelchair and gave Chloe a smile as he offered his hand to Jack once again. "I'll see you in a while, man. You do what you need and we'll be here."

"I know," Jack answered, some of the gratitude sneaking back into his voice. Curtis didn't want to hear it; instead he clapped Jack carefully on the shoulder and stood up, his eyes falling on Chloe as she walked through the small apartment to find the two bedrooms, one of which was occupied by a plush recliner. "Chloe, Bill told me what the plan is; you do what you do, all right?"

The words "take care of Jack" were never needed. It was a way of giving her his vote of confidence without making Bauer feel more like a liability than he already did. Chloe crossed over to him, what she used for a smile twisting her lips. "No problem. I always do what I'm told, right?"

Curtis laughed again and shut the door, leaving her to throw the locks and seal the electronic one with the last four digits of her cell phone number. Jack was asleep by the time she returned to him.

A long shadow on the floor greeted Curtis's entry back into CTU proper, noticeable because it was unmoving and in a corridor only a handful of people knew existed. The owner of the shadow wasn't one of them so what did surprise him was that he'd been followed but then he'd been inside of headquarters and his attention was on Jack. He forgave himself, once.

"Audrey."

"Hello, Curtis." She didn't meet his eyes and desperately wanted to forget that they both knew why. Curtis smiled politely but his expression hardened in a few moments. "Stay away, Miss Raines. This isn't personal. It's what the best qualified person in the world thinks can help him. Creating more confusion for Jack won't and I want your word that you won't follow any of us who know where Jack was taken again or I will tell my people that you are a… concern."

Audrey looked as if she were about to answer him smartly but then lowered her head, trying to look less guilty even as she recalled watching Chloe clumsily but respectfully dress Jack Bauer from the glass-walled observation room. At that point, at least, he would have been more at ease to have hands on his body that were already familiar. She ground her teeth at the memory and faced facts. "I know my exclusion is my own fault. It's not easy, though, and it's a credit to you that Jack's so well isolated."

Curtis shrugged and rested his hand on her arm to steer Audrey away from the crossover corridor. "The point of which is so that he won't be for long. Ms. Raines,… Audrey, have some faith. If what you have with Jack is solid, you'll find out soon and Chloe has been told that it's in Jack's best interest for them not to have any entanglements beyond friendship. It's why she is where she is and she'll only do what's right for him, same as he would for any of us."

Audrey sighed as she heard her own words and let him steer as they navigated the long corridors.

Jack slept for another hour, sitting upright, watched by Chloe as she hunted around the apartment and made herself familiar with the layout. The largest room was the living room with the view of the city; the small kitchen was open to it to the right of the front door. A dark tan carpet, low-pile to accommodate the wheelchair, ran through the entire place. A short hallway to the left led to the two bedrooms. The drywall was smooth and new, so were the plumbing fixtures in the bathroom, a sign that the place had been remodeled.

The bath was on the other side of the room without the recliner. Chloe stood in the hallway that separated them and worked out the logic of the seemingly strange design. Assuming Jack was put in the other room, he wouldn't be able to try and get to the bath on his own without going through here and drawing her attention, at least in his current condition. She grudgingly gave Winters points for her anticipation of Jack's behavior. As soon as he thought he could, he would be trying to move about, too soon, of course, as much in defiance of the Chinese as his own weakness.

She went to the closet next. Someone had worked fast, most of her clothes were in it, organized in a way she never took time to do. They'd even remembered her underwear; CTU must have sent a female agent. The books she had asked for were stacked on the stand by the bed with its floral print linens. A glance across the hallway she could see that the other room had far more masculine appointments. The bedcovers were in a geometric pattern of blues and dark greens.

Chloe rolled her eyes as she surveyed the rest of the room intended for Jack, realizing that the bed was higher than normal and the there were lumps under she dark bedclothes that must have been folded down rails. Chloe frowned and flipped the cover back to discover not only rails but a set of steel rings screwed into all four corners of the double bed, intended, no doubt, as anchors for restraints. She found the four padded cuffs under the bed in a non-descript box and took a moment to kick it out of sight then left the room with an angry sigh and went back to where Jack still slept, leaning to his right in the wheelchair, hands coiled in his lap. She paused to watch him for a moment and then went to the kitchen.

Definitely a woman agent, there was a container of iced tea already made, decaf, but still almost tea. Good, neither she nor Jack needed to have their nerves wired any further. She made them both a glass and went back to the living room. Putting the glasses on the coffee table with its rounded corners and soft wood, she knelt down before the wheelchair and wondered how best to wake her charge. She'd read the so far tiny debrief of what he'd been through on the "Shanghai", that waking him was always a blast of ice-cold seawater. She decided to go for the opposite effect.

The heating system, whatever it was, worked as well as she hoped. It was nearly eighty degrees in the small apartment in a few minutes. Chloe wiped the sweat from her face and went back to Bauer, kneeling before him and simply laying her hand on his leg. In the sweat suit he must have been burning up already but it took him a few minutes more to stir, flushed and breathing a little heavily. He smiled when he saw her and made an effort to sit up as soon as she waved the tea in her hand. He winced as he did, needles of dull pain from where his neck had twisted as he slept grabbing him. He groaned then felt her hand on the spot. The stretched muscles relaxed under the sudden additional warmth. As soon as his expression of pain faded, she removed her hand and gave him the glass.

"Don't worry, whoever was here before us made it."

Jack gave her a false glare, "Looks like we need to work on your confidence as much as mine. There is a computer in the stove. I have faith in you."

"We'll need it. It's just you and me from here on out, remember? No one's coming to cook and there'd be a lot of paperwork if Curtis killed the pizza guy."

Jack looked at her over the clear plastic rim of the glass, a dull smile on his lips that she noticed after a moment. She had an unexplainable urge to blush and a trace of irritation with him curled her lip. "What?"

Jack's smile grew slightly. "I've just never had a chance to appreciate your sense of humor."

Chloe shrugged and sat back on the coffee table, "No, but you met my ex-husband; you knew I must've had one."

Jack laughed again, and this time she joined him but his expression sobered quickly. "Well, he didn't say anything after he saw me with President Logan. There must be something you admired about him."

"Yeah, there was. I told him not to say anything if he found you in a really weird situation and he didn't. Even though it was the President, I knew he wouldn't."

"And the problem was?"

"Just that; he did whatever I said. I was like being married to somebody I programmed. I finally told him to divorce me. He did that, too." Chloe didn't smile so Jack didn't either although it was difficult. An expression of dull and slightly amused disbelief overcame her for a second, but then she shook her head. "What do you do with a guy who has a genius I.Q. and spends his life selling women's shoes?" She shrugged and they finished their drinks. Chloe took the empty glasses back into the kitchen, surveying it quickly.

"Winters said it would be okay for you to try and eat. Do you want me to… try and cook?" Chloe fought the urge to smirk. At home she barely cooked for herself; dinner went "beep". She was spared from the possibility when Jack shook his head after a moment. She could barely hear him suddenly.

"It's been a long first day back in reality. I think I want to get some… real rest."

Chloe nodded and circled around the island that separated the kitchen area from the tan and rust living room. Jack reached to lock the wheels of the chair as she did but stopped when her hand fell on his arched shoulder. She let him struggle with the brake a moment more before pulling him back a little. "Like you said, it's been a long day."

Head still down, he slowly nodded and straightened. "Yeah, it has." He didn't move as her hand retreated from his shoulder and she pushed the chair down the hallway and into the bedroom whose door had been designed to accommodate it. The plush navy recliner drew his attention immediately but he said nothing, a far more pressing concern on him than the idea of his friend needing to sleep at his bedside. Chances were it would wasn't the first time she had. "Chloe."

She was reaching to pull down the bedcovers but hesitating for some reason, her eyes on the far wall, her jaw clenched. He rested a hand on her arm and she gratefully dropped the bunched covers. "Mm-hpmh?"

Jack looked down from her, his face slightly flush. "I… I need to use the---."

"Oh…oh… no problem." Jack looked up at her strange tone of voice. She sounded relieved that he had only asked for help to use the bathroom. He didn't have time to think about it after that, however. Chloe moved fast, almost lifting him as he leaned forward and helping him to stand. She unlocked the chair and pushed it out of the way and guided him across the hallway and through her room to the white and green tiled bath. It was large and already supplied with towels and other sundries. She was going to have to find out who the agent was that set things up and thank her.

Jack was forced to lean on the wall over the commode when they came to a stop, bracing himself in front as Chloe did so behind him. They moved in a sort of awkward ballet as soon as Jack had himself balanced. Getting it over with quickly was best, Chloe decided, and moved her hands to Jack's stomach, feeling for the knot of the cord holding the sweatpants and untying it. Nodding although he couldn't see it, she rested her hands on his hips. "Ready?"

Jack studied wall to find a focus point and lowered his hands. "Yeah." He felt Chloe's fingers come in contact with him only for a moment before she pulled the sweat pants and his shorts down in one smooth motion, only as far as needed.

Flushed and shaking slightly, Jack slowly relaxed when he suddenly felt Chloe's forehead and nose in the middle of his back, reassuring him that she could see nothing, was respecting him completely even in this awkward situation. His relaxation only lasted until the sharp, stinging pain came from his groin and caused him to gasp and attempt to double over, barely aware of Chloe's arms suddenly tightening around him. It passed after a few seconds to a dull, burning ache but he was already weak and dizzy. At that moment, Chloe could have been seeing everything and as long as she was there it wouldn't have mattered. He relaxed his grip on her arms and leaned back as a sign he was finished; she lifted her head and proceeded to pull his shorts back up but leave his sweat pants to drop. He was going to be cooler and more comfortable without them, especially now.

Jack stepped out of the pants slowly and held onto her as she guided him back to his room and settled him on the bed, stripping off his heavy shirt and replacing it with one made of thin cotton. Wiping the sweat from her face, Chloe helped him up again, "One last time, okay?"

Bauer nodded and held onto her as she pulled the bed clothes down with a quick yank and he saw what she had been dreading him to see earlier, the steel restraint rings. He sighed as he finally sat down for the last time, spent and glad to have her help as she eased him down and lifted both his legs. She could feel his muscles shaking with exhaustion beneath her hands and dismissed the sudden urge to rub the tension out of them. She'd intruded on his body enough. Chloe straightened and pulled the thinnest sheet over him. "Are you okay now?"

Jack looked up, stopping his withdrawal; he'd been coiling in on himself in response to the lingering pain between his legs. "Yeah, the catheter, there must be a tear…". He stopped as Chloe nodded and reached out to rub his arm. Her hand slowed as it traveled over the scars from the metal restraints, lingering there as if she could draw the memory of the pain out of them. A smile suddenly tightened her lips.

"I'll be right back." When she returned there was a flat kitchen knife in her hand and Bauer watched with burning eyes he still couldn't quite close as she used it as a screwdriver, undoing the hardware that held the restraint rings to the double bed. She gathered them up, along with the short heavy screws, and dumped the clanking mass into a small garbage can near the bed.

Jack watched her with a lump forming in his throat, his jaw working around words he couldn't quite form as she disposed of her means of controlling him if the nightmares made him violent. Chloe gave him one of her lopsided smirks and sat down on the bed. "We don't need them. Jack, I won't let you hurt yourself."

"I wasn't worried about hurting myself." Chloe sighed and stood up to drag the recliner closer, taking the hand he automatically extended toward her she settled into it. "Trust me, Jack. I've known that for years." She took his hand and held it for the few minutes it took him to fall deeply asleep, then slowly eased out of the chair and activated the bedside monitor. Taking the receiving unit with her, she went to the bath and showered quickly then turned down the heat and grabbed blanket for herself from the bed before returning to the recliner. His hand was where she left it and settling down, she took it in her own again.


	4. Chapter 4

Chloe O'Brian looked at the black screen before her and scowled, her fingers moving quickly as she made the last few entries into the lower level of the chat window.

CO'Brian::No, not yet. If he did, they weren't bad. Is that okay?::

GWinters::Yes, but don't be overconfident. His physical exhaustion is keeping him in a non-REM sleep longer. He'll dream more as he recovers. You found the restraints?::

Chloe frowned and hesitated only a moment.

CO'Brian::Yeah. They're here.:: Well, Winters hadn't asked what condition they were in, just if she'd found them. …and aside from that being overconfident was her last worry.

GWinters::If you use them he should accept it. If he does something to harm you it will set him back considerably; keep that in mind. Was there anything else?::

Chloe hesitated and decided not to tell her about the left over problem from the catheter since it had passed so quickly. If anyone came to examine him, he would have to know that she'd been IMing someone about his privates.

CO'Brian::No::

GWinters::All right, sounds like a good first day. Congratulations, Chloe.::

CO'Brian::Thanks. Bye.::

Chloe shut down the window and looked over at Jack. He'd been asleep now without drugs or dreams that she could tell for at least ten hours. She had woken up a few hours ago and found her laptop waiting for her in the double entry room that lead to what she had begun thinking of as "the outside world". Curtis had installed it for two purposes, real security and Winter's instructions that it was another small way of unconsciously reassuring Jack Bauer that he wouldn't have to deal with any surprises.

The most positive element of his isolation had fixed herself a passable breakfast and returned to Bauer's bedside, opening up the laptop again as if her accustomed third arm had been grafted back on. She'd muted the sound and was glad for the low-impact keys. Winters had, of course, IMed her the moment that she tied herself into the CTU network but kept her inquiries brief. She was apparently not expecting much the first few days, regardless, according to the outline of recommendations that she'd sent to Chloe. According to it she should make as little comment on the situation as possible, let him adjust to the isolated, safe, and comfortable environment on his own terms.

Chloe went back to what she had been doing, upgrading the pattern of the new satellite sequences based on the Agent Kingman's latest inputs. She rolled her eyes and rerouted the deployment data so that it also included the DOD's protocols. Twenty minutes passed before her hands slowed and her left side tensed slightly. She had the distinct feeling she was being watched and finally turned to look at Jack. "We'll have Nidal Hassan in seventy-two hours," she offered without preamble.

Jack looked away from the screen and turned onto his back, breathing carefully and then swallowing a few times. "Who's doing the ground tracking?"

"Brent Kingman. He's new but he was Black Ops at CIA. New jerks, same job. He's got what he needs." She shut down the computer and turned things back over to Sonja, the new person on probation at Edgar's position. Chloe had broken her in and had to admit she was better than Edgar but in love the rule book. Frowning, she pushed the small table aside that held the computer and folded her leg up in the chair. She had changed into a sleeveless white t-shirt and a pair of thin green cotton pants. "No dreams?"

"I don't remember any." He looked away, however, with disinterest that was far too sudden. Chloe could guess why and kicked herself; it was probably best to get his mind off the active field ops. She wondered when he would think he had given enough.

O'Brian came to her feel quietly and sat down on the bed. "Good, but you don't get off that easy."

Jack turned his head toward her and found her looking at him with the "don't cross me" smile. "I thought we were here because you were supposed to be different from the rest of the world?"

"I am," she answered, forcing a note of insolence into her voice, "this'll be for your own good." She stood up and extended her hand to him and after a pause he took it. A moment later he was sitting up on the side of the bed, the sheet pulled self-consciously across his waist. She let him sit for a moment and then pulled the sweatpants he had been wearing up his legs and helped him to stand. With a fragment of relief he realized it was easier than it had been the first time but his hands returned to her shoulders as she tied the pant cord just barely tight enough to do its job. Instead of letting him settle on the bed again, she reached an ankle back to snag the wheelchair but stopped when she felt the muscles of his back tighten. Smiling to herself, she looked up at him. "Skip the chair?"

Jack looked down at her and then away. "I want to try. Kitchen?"

Chloe nodded carefully, overly mindful that she was balancing still for them both. "Let's just make it the living room. If you see me cooking, you'll be sick for good."

Jack smiled even though Chloe hadn't and then concentrated on following her lead and sharing his weight as they went down the wide, carpeted hallway, both of them barefoot. It took Chloe a moment to find her own balance as she realized her hold on him was too tight. It was no more than three dozen steps to cover the hallway and the part of the living room that held the sofa but it took them the better part of three minutes to make the crossing, Chloe letting Bauer set the pace after a few steps and stopping when he had to do so. Out of the large window that faced the sofa, dark clouds and squalls of rain covered the Valley and blurred the pinpricks of light that went on forever.

The crash of thunder came a few seconds after they had reached the couch and she felt him flinch sharply as the sound filled the room. Positioning herself as a counterweight, she helped him lower himself onto the cushions. The thunder cracked again and this time he looked away as she faced him but he also leaned forward suddenly, his arms dropping from her neck to cover her own, as if to prolong the time she would be in contact with him. Chloe stopped her retreat and for the first time simply held him, lightly and as if he were spun Waterford crystal. She scrambled through screens of data in her mind, recalling what Winters had suggested when moments like this started, and that his allowing himself to react was a good thing; he wasn't opting to shut down and lock her out.

"Is it the thunder?"

He was perfectly still this time when the pounding came from outside, too still. Chloe was suddenly aware of the weight of his hands on her shoulders and of his right fingers tugging rhythmically at a strip of her hair. When he finally spoke it had the tone of a recorded confession. "Two of the days I was on the ship, the second week, I think, they unchained me, but left me cuffed, and locked me up in one of the cargo containers." He shivered but his eyes remained on her, and let her fight for him, offering up his demons to do battle against this scowling angel of trust. Chloe's hands spread and tightened against his sides.

"It's okay to tell me… if you want. Go on."

Bauer nodded, his eyes never left her face, locking on her as if he were afraid she would vanish otherwise, "… and then they just had someone beat on the damn thing almost the entire time. It was literally being trapped in a steel drum, not loud to damage your ears but it was like being beaten on every point of your body at once after a few hours. No damage, just control, and even unchained nothing I could do to fight back. I don't think it was something anyone had thought of before to train against."

Chloe sank her teeth into her lip and fought her anger. The analyst won over the lioness after a few seconds, Jack didn't need her to react; he needed her help past the memory, just as if he were in a building full of hostiles and she were just in his ear. Only now, she was in a far more intimate place, his mind, and he needed her even more steady. Facts, she needed facts. She realized the first one was that there weren't any. "Jack, that wasn't in the debrief."

"Because I didn't want it there... I didn't know Winters, didn't trust her. I didn't want…," the breath left him for a moment and he looked away from her only to have her let go of him with one hand and pull his face back around.

"You didn't want anyone to know the worst thing they did to you?"

"One of them, at least. I finally started screaming just to hear something else; they dragged me out unconscious and I spent the next two days throwing up. It was the only time they were generous about food and water."

There were tears in his eyes, then on his face, mirrored by the ones she couldn't stop of her own. Chloe fought down her reactions again; he didn't need to deal with them. "Then how about we stick it in their eye and have a nice,… quiet breakfast?" She tried to smile but couldn't just yet. Someone had run a knife through her. She should have found him sooner, should have been smarter, should never have called him in the first place. She almost would have drowned in the guilt at that moment, save for the fact that it would have been the worst thing for Bauer. Chloe let go of his face and helped him to sit back. "Storm's almost over, okay? I'll be right here."

Jack took her hands as they slid from his back, holding them long enough to realize they were clammy and shaking slightly. However, when she returned his grip briefly, her fingers strong and steady. "I'm okay. Telling you helps."

"Good, and you can tell me whatever you want, but you're gonna' eat."

Jack nodded, unquestioning and grateful, and at the same time tired and confused. Chloe backed away from him slowly and went into the kitchen, her eyes on the back of his head as she scrambled around, quickly fixing two small bowls of oatmeal and including a fair amount of ginger in the mix, not just for flavor but because she knew it would keep him from becoming nauseated, at least according to the data given to her. She tasted it and opened the refrigerator, adding milk when she realized it was too spicy.

Chloe paused as she reached her arm back into the refrigerator to return the milk. She bit off a smile and decided there was one more chance they could take today.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Doctor."

Gwen Winters turned in the direction of the voice, recognizing Audrey Raines. "Good morning."

Raines nodded but her eyes fell immediately away from the doctor's face. "I was hoping you might be able to tell me how Jack is doing?"

Winters folded her arms lightly and offered a stiff smile. "He made the transition very well, better than hoped. It's too soon to say anything beyond that."

Audrey nodded and then dropped her hand sharply into the pockets of her dark suitcoat. "You can't tell me anything… more?"

Winters sighed and considered her next words carefully. "Ms. Raines, have you ever heard the term, "Who watches the watchers?"

"In this business? Of course."

"Well, in this case, it has a direct application." The doctor took another step closer to the other blond and folded her arms a bit more tightly. "Given my specialization in post-traumatic stress, most of my patients are men, involved in undercover or military work, captives in war, and covert operations. I have a very small list at times because most of people who might benefit from my care end up dead. Those who do are often delusional or have been tortured by medical experts. It's why I never wear a white coat to examine anyone but throughout my time in this field, I have been accused of any number of crimes by deluded souls in agonies I can't imagine but can sometimes repair. The upshot of this is that in every facility where I practice there are cameras in every room, so that I can run the tape back and prove to a soldier or a spy or a police officer that what they think I did to them, too, was only their imagination. They see the reality and it helps them to recover others, to learn I am a figure they can trust." Winters saw that her revelation was having the intended effect, that a cloud of red was blossoming slowly from under Raines' collar.

"I love Jack. Do you understand that it's difficult to accept I'm the one who can't, who isn't allowed even to try… to help him?"

"Which you made more difficult for yourself by entering my observation room to watch Ms. O'Brian prepare Jack to leave. Tell me, did you find any of her behavior improper?"

Audrey studied the floor with rage at herself and not a little embarrassment, wondering if this woman had any idea what her exclusion from Jack's recovery was costing her. "No, she was very respectful, professional. Jack seemed as comfortable as he could be given the circumstances but Chloe still isn't someone who's been with him or a medical professional."

"And that's what's troubling you?"

"No, of course not. I want this to work for him. Was I jealous? I don't know. I was more disappointed with myself."

"Understandably, Ms. Raines, and justly so. I want you to think about something: Miss O'Brian is a stranger to him in the physical sense but under those circumstances it was you who was violating his privacy." The doctor's tone softened abruptly. "If it helps to make this easier for you… when I asked Jack if he wanted to attempt this, I didn't give him my reasons, in their entirety, for excluding you. I brought his potential guilt for letting you think he was dead as an added stressor and just told him I wanted no complications, no unbalanced energies going into this. I had selected Ms. O'Brian because of their remarkable fiduciary relationship and the very lack of conflicting motives. I gave him nothing but the facts that were relevant to my selection of her. Your name wasn't brought into it in the context of Walt Cummings or your interrogation at Jack's hands."

"And if he asks in more detail?"

Winters sighed and met the other woman's angry gaze. "I'll tell him the truth. He'll likely only ask for what he can handle. That's the way these things normally go. The subconscious mind recovers first and starts seeking the data the conscious mind is ready to accept." The doctor could see the other woman was still upset and unconvinced and it was understandable. Very few women would appreciate the site of another woman in any intimate situation with their partner. "Mrs. Raines, I'm not here to undermine anyone and I do not make my decisions at random. All of you are strangers to me, case histories and personality profiles."

"And those ignore the feelings people may or may not have for each other?"

"This isn't about feelings as you think of them. It's about slinging a safety net in someone's mind and whoever's holding the other end of it needs to be someone the patient has as little reason to question as possible. You knew some of Mr. Bauer's closest friends had been murdered, and they included the President of the United State, and your first instinct was to lie about a relatively innocent night of drunken sex with a figure who was involved. By the time that went on, Ms. O'Brian had already risked her life and her freedom, to say nothing of her career. If you were me, given those facts and your history, intending to immerse Mr. Bauer in a situation of optimal psychological security, who would you have chosen? Who had acted more responsibly in their relationship with him, had put him first, and done so numerous times prior to that day?" Winters shook her head and unclenched her arms, offering the other woman a vague smile. "Do that now, Ms. Raines; take the chance of putting him first."

Chloe looked up from the cleared dishes with a slightly stunned smile, ran some water on them in the sink and then turned back. She had better uses for the water and this high up the flow was slow. She went back to the living room and sat down on the arm of the chair nearest Bauer. His hand was on his stomach and his jaw clenched with determination. He was, nevertheless, wearing a slight smile. "I guess this means you didn't kill me either."

"I'll do worse next time, promise. … but I won't promise anything more complicated till you can manage a fire extinguisher."

Jack made the effort to glare at her but found she was staring back into the kitchen, calculation overtaking her expression as she looked away from him. He was about to ask when a sudden wave of exhaustion overcame him. Chloe looked back as his head sank forward and his eyes drifted shut. "Hey?"

Bauer's head snapped back. "I'm sorry. Were you---?"

'No, just being boring company."

Jack frowned. "We'll work on you after I'm in one piece, young lady."

Chloe's lips twisted for a moment and she shook her head. "Always take the rough end of the deal, Jack?" She stood up and reached to lift his legs onto the sofa, holding his gaze, "Get some rest, all right? We'll just make this a small day?" Jack nodded after a moment, stretching out and watching her. She left and returned with a blanket to cover him and a fat book with a childish looking cover. She sat down in the chair for a moment and then slid down to the floor, resting her back against the sofa near his arm, her bare feet braced against the smooth pine coffee table. Chloe heard the rustle of fabric and sighed when Jack's hand slipped free of the blanket and fell onto her shoulder. She reached up with her opposite hand and squeezed his fingers before returning to the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

She got no more than a half-dozen pages when Bauer's hand twitched on her shoulder and she heard his breathing change. Chloe put the book down and came to her knees, taking the hand he had been keeping on her. She edged down next to him on the sofa and watched as his breathing became rapid and shallow. They were about to deal with his first nightmare. The good thing about it was that it meant he was no longer having to sleep so deeply they didn't occur and as a possible mechanism for his mind to recover they were coming into play. She let him ride it out for only a moment more, seeing he had already broken out in a sweat beneath the blue blanket.

"Jack, it's time to wake up. Jack, it's Chloe. This is isn't real." She repeated herself a few times at a whisper. She touched his face and said it all again, a little more loudly. Bauer's eyes snapped open and he stared at her, still disoriented and with the paralyzing agent produced by the dreaming brain still holding him fast. It took several seconds before he responded, blinking and pulling himself toward her haltingly. O'Brian backed up enough to wrap one arm around his body and the other around his head. "You with me?" He didn't answer, but she felt him swallow, felt him slow his breathing. He slowly became heavier and she took his relaxation as a sign to ease him release him. Before her hands could leave him, he snatched them both in his own and she was glad to feel the strength that was back in them, even if it was because of the adrenalin high. She bit her lip as she looked him in the eye. "Does it help if you talk about it?"

"I don't know," he finally answered, looking away from O'Brian and out of the sealed windows of the balcony. "I've never bothered anyone else with the details. Why see horror on someone else's face? Or anger? Pity?"

Chloe O'Brian gave him her best evil look. "Well, you can scratch that last one, Jack, and yeah, sure, I'm pissed someone's done this to you but at least you told me why you don't. Besides," she let her fingers tug at his sweat-darkened hair for a moment, "I had kind of an idea to get your mind off things."

It worked just that quickly it seemed. He managed a curious smile. "You're the boss, now."

A sharp twitch of irritation crossed her face. "No, I'm not. We're doing this together. I already get blamed for enough stuff when you're around." She smiled back at him and undermined her own tone. She could tease him about that; he trusted her enough not to burden him with non-existent guilt. Chloe thought for herself, made her own choices, had known the consequences of everything she had done for him. "Okay, no running off, I'll be back for you in a couple minutes." She disappeared from view, headed in the direction of the kitchen and then back across the apartment. It was longer than he thought it would be before she returned, however, and he was sitting up on the sofa by the time she did. Whatever she'd been doing, her hands were dry but red as if they'd been freshly scrubbed. They were warmer than normal when she put them on his waist. They had it down to a matter of simple physics now; she wouldn't so much lift him upright as she would let gravity take him in her direction. She was strong enough to stop them from falling and he was strong enough to hold on.

Upright, Jack slid his arm around her shoulders and she took his hand as the other one went under his arms. They moved slowly down the hallway but to Jack's surprise, she steered him into her own room, past the unmade bed, and stopped in front of the closed door of the spacious bathroom. Predictably, she felt him tense and rolled her eyes. "Hey, we survived our first trip here. Close your eyes and hold onto me, well, I mean tighter." She couldn't see him close his eyes but she felt his arm tighten slightly as he anticipated her letting go.

Balancing with his eyes closed and his leg muscles already slightly spastic, Jack heard the door to the bath open just as Chloe leaned forward. "Okay, you can open your eyes now. And don't hate me, I figured out how to make this easy." Bauer turned his head to smile at her before he looked in the bathroom and saw that the bathtub was nearly full, the water covered by a thick, irregular layer of bubbles. The walls were sweating with steam but she had dried the floor and put down a carpet of tan bath rugs between the doorway and the broad side of the tub. He looked back at O'Brian with a sudden sigh. She was glancing up at him cattishly, her face flushed by more than the heat. "This is okay, right?"

Jack hesitated, not because it wasn't but because he wanted to say the right thing. He nodded finally, dropping his forehead for a moment upon her crown. His voice was gruff with restraint when he spoke. "It's great. Come on."

Jack followed her lead as she came around in front of him and backed into the room along the line of rugs. At a guess, she had probably plotted out every move they would have to make to keep them both in their comfort zone, only Bauer was suddenly aware that his own probably far exceeded Chloe's as far as his baring everything to her. That she was taking such care to respect his last privacy was ironically making it less troubling for him to have it unavoidably breached. Looking at the wall behind him, she lifted his shirt carefully, letting him back both arms out of it before lifting it over his head and tossing it back onto her bed through the door. She turned back and her gaze was now direct, her eyes unblinking. It was the face that she wore during live ops, when she was most in control – then of information and other people's lives and now, of herself more than him despite her words, "Relax, just look at me, Jack. I told you I'd make this easy." Her hands fell to his waist as she held his gaze, pulling the knot out of the tie to his sweatpants and then moving her hands to his hips. Jack realized he was keeping his eyes on Chloe as much for her sake as for himself and that the stress on both of them was not for themselves but each other. She looked away from him for a second in the direction of the bar holding the clear shower curtain. "Hold onto the rail," she ordered, bracing him as he reached upward with his right hand to follow her instructions.

Her eyes locked again on his, Chloe worked the blue sweats down to where they fell into a puddle around his ankles, taking his shorts with them. They reversed the lifting maneuver, eyes still locked, as she lowered him to the side of the tub in the middle. Jack flinched when the still cool porcelain came in touch with his backside. With his weight off her arms, Chloe gave a small huff but then moved closer, "Put your arms around my neck."

Jack did, smiling to himself once they were close enough that she couldn't see his face. He tried to relax as Chloe's arms encircled his back and with a last effort she eased him down into the warm water. Her outer arm slid down his flank, to his hip and curled under his legs just as they would have fallen gracelessly and sloppily into the water. Bauer gripped her more tightly once he was settled down in the tub, the warm water cradling him and the first sensation of finally being "cleaned" of his experiences began to enter his conscious and unconscious.

It took Chloe a moment to realize he was not so much holding on as simply holding her. No longer supporting him, she rubbed his now wet back for a moment and then moved to sit on the side of the tub. It was only then that Jack realized that he was not only concealed beneath a layer of bubbles, but that the water itself was clouded and white. He sank back against the inflated pillow that was concealed beneath the water and, to his own surprise, suddenly felt tears on his face. If O'Brian had any doubt they were simply relief and appreciation, she abandoned them as he took her hand and held it against his chest, unable to find words or perhaps form them. She urged him to sit forward after a few minutes and picked up the washcloth with her free hand, moving it in slow circles on his back. She forced herself to shut down in part again, not to react to the scars as she found there or the swirl of energy in her gut. Jack's own emotions were still raw enough but his grip restraining her hand to his chest eventually relaxed and he simply sat in silence, responding to her sleepily as she bathed him for the better part of an hour, discreetly and gently. He did look up when she came to her feet and retrieve the shower hose, adjusting the water she came back to his side and urged him forward again, aware that he was tiring.

"One more thing, Jack, all you have to do is rest and then we'll get you in bed." O'Brian sat back on the side of the tub and carefully used the extended shower head to wet his hair, keeping the water off his face as best she could. Jack leaned back into her touch as she retrieved the shampoo and began to wash his hair. Chloe gave a meaningless scowl as, unthinking, he leaned over her leg, soaking it, and wavered between sleep and wakefulness as she took her time to finish. Several minutes later she straightened. "Jack, we need to get you out of here before you end up a fish or the milk turns."

He lifted his head and she used the opportunity to rinse the foam from his hair. It took less effort to get him out of the tub than it had to get in because she simply this time had to wrap a towel around him. She sat him on the bed in her room and dried him, managing to pull a pair of boxer shorts onto him without a blink by either of them. He looked utterly relaxed for the first time since all of this had started and after a moment's consideration Chloe smiled over his head and then knelt down. She was a mess, her own clothing still wet, and her hair damp from the moisture in the air in the shower. "Let's call it a day and you get some sleep in here, okay?"

Jack had been about to reach for her, ready for her help to get back in his room. Despite her words, he completed the motion. Chloe stayed on her knees, realizing he didn't want help up. "Thank you."

"It's okay, Jack."

He shook his head and looked past her into the now messy and wet bath. "I don't remember Winters, or anyone else taking care of me. I was too far gone, or had to be kept that way from what I'm told. The last time I remembered being touched until now… all I could do was scream until they gagged me. You took that away a little, made me feel like a person again, and you did make it easy."

Chloe blushed, happy but wanting no credit. It had only been right thing to do, what seemed logical, and her only goal had been to get him through it without feeling like a complete invalid or on display any longer. She raised her head finally and stroked one of the arms around her neck. "Good, but if I come up with something where I screw up, just stop me, deal?"

Jack sighed, too tired, too relaxed to argue with her. "I want to get some sleep. We'll talk about that later. Will you stay?"

Chloe thought about the first visit of the nightmares just a few hours ago. Her face screwed up in irritation. "You're asking? Come on, I'll be here, and then we'll get some more food in you." He nodded and a few minutes later was coiled on his side under the floral blanket. Sitting on the bed, she held his hand until he fell asleep and while he slept changed out of her wet clothes and cleaned the bathroom. Finishing, she settled down with her book on the chair next to the bed and despite her remarks to Gwen Winters found herself watching him sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Compared to how things usually went for anyone who worked for CTU, it was strangest of all to live for a short time almost in the way that most people thought was "normal". By the fourth day, Jack and Chloe had fallen into a routine, had learned how to manage his needs in a way where they were both comfortable. Despite Chloe's dismissals of her own cooking it was more than passable as long as she had instructions to follow. Jack had gained a few pounds and heard from Chloe that for her sake that might not be a good thing. However, she had said it only because they had both noticed that the strength had begun to return to his legs and his balance was more reliable. He still needed her help to walk but she was supporting him less and less. Nor was he sleeping as much but she could still see exhaustion upon him more in spirit than body. She waited until he was asleep on the sofa, wrapped in a long, white, cotton robe and then pulled out her computer the fourth night and activated the messenger program. Winters was on her in seconds.

GWinters::How's our patient:

CO'Brian::He's not my patient.:

There was a pause, during which Chloe imagined the other woman sighing and ending it with a tight smile.

GWinters::Well, think of yourself as a facilitator. Is he eating:

CO'Brian::Yeah. He's put on some weight; he's stronger.: She hesitated a moment before going on, her eyes on drifting over Bauer as he slept a few feet from her. :There is one thing.:

GWinters::Go on.:

CO'Brian::He hasn't asked about anyone else. He doesn't act like he's even aware that anything's outside this safehouse.:

GWinters::Don't worry. Actually, that's fine, Chloe. It means he's secure with you. He's operating where he's comfortable, taking advantage of the opportunity to stabilize himself. A little denial can be a good thing. He'll reach out when he's ready to deal with others. Does he seem more like himself:

CO'Brian::Yeah, except for not asking about anyone. When we can just talk, it like nothing's wrong, like we're just stuck here and he's okay.:

GWinters::If it goes beyond a week or so, we'll push it a bit then. This is good for now though.:

CO'Brian::Okay, fine. Just let whoever you can know he's better. And tell whoever else set this place up they did a good job.:

GWinters::I will. Let me know if you need anything.:

CO'Brian::NP. Thanks.:

Chloe shut down the window and puffed out her cheeks. Okay, so it was a good thing that Jack was acting like she was the only person in the world. She could just imagine Audrey's face if she'd seen that conversation. She was happy to be isolated herself every time she thought of Audrey getting debriefed. Well, as long as it didn't interfere with her doing her job once this was over, Raines could hate her all she wanted. She didn't know she was going to be here and nobody at CTU who mattered was going to think she had somehow arranged to be isolated with Jack Bauer. More likely they wouldn't believe she could take care of anybody besides herself: Weird Chloe… Rude Chloe… Bitch Chloe…. Oh well. She started to shut the laptop but took a moment to scan the CNN and MSNBC websites, just to reassure herself the rest of the world still existed. She wasn't ready to go back to it as long as Jack needed her here and since there were no reports that anyone had had mercy on the world and killed Paris Hilton there was no rush to embrace the outside world yet.

She folded the laptop up and disconnected it, wishing she had brought her table out here instead of frying her lap for an hour. She brushed at the overly-warm gray fabric of her sweats and shrugged off the jacket leaving only her blue tank top. At least she didn't have to dress for work doing this and was even better off without shoes. Chloe glanced out at the kitchen again, wondering what she could conjure up by way of food when she heard the subtle change in Jack's breathing. She had become attuned to it in the days she had sat near him as he slept. By rote she dropped to his side and automatically gathered his hands in her own. When his breathing became foreshortened at the next level, she would start the litany that was supposed to bring him back.

---

The irony of it was he was glad they were coning. It meant the wait was over. They'd do what they wanted and leave him to be. He only had to survive however long they'd decide to abuse him. After that they would drug him, treat him, let him get some damn rest. Sick as it was, he was glad he was about to be tortured but the fear still gathered in his stomach. The man whose name he'd never heard opened the door, followed by a woman he'd never seen carrying a long, slender metal tube, hollow by the sound of it. She was dressed in some sort of elaborate costume, her fact painted white. Jack's mind wandered. He thought geishas were Japanese. What the hell was she doing here? If she was bothered that he was naked and strapped to the four corners of a broad table it didn't show; her painted features were impossible to read. She simply looked down at him with no expression as she took a position across the table from the nameless man.

The woman put the tube down and gave him water, clean for once, then proceeded to walk around the table as the man spoke, evaluating him for whatever purpose, not predatory but calm and distant. That terrified him even more. He found it impossible to fully concentrate on what the man in the dark suit was saying but the words penetrated somehow.

"Do you know what a meridian is, Mr. Bauer? Of course you do. You were a pilot. You know it is a line of reference, in navigation, in surveying. But before all that, it was a line delineating the human body for someone skilled at the healing art of acupuncture. The crossing of a meridian would tell a healer where to direct the needle to relieve pain, to encour---."

"Jack, it's time to wake up. Jack, it's Chloe. This is isn't real." The voice came from nowhere, from the darkness itself.

The man continued, moving out of the way to accommodate the woman in her red silks as she circled him again. There was a pair of needles in her hand now. Long and glittering in the dull light. "… to encourage the body to heal from illness. Of course, we are believers in balance, in yin and yang, ancient trad---."

"Jack, it's time to wake up. Jack, it's Chloe. This is isn't real."

"---traditions. Where there is a means of relief, there is also the means of causing pain."

The first needle went in, just below his navel, wider and penetrating deeper than a real acupuncture needle. He screamed. Give them what they want. Sometimes they stop sooner.

Louder this time, another voice cancelled his scream out, a voice of someone that wasn't here, promising the impossible. "Jack, it's time to wake up. Jack, it's Chloe. This is isn't real."

The second needle went in, just as the man was mumbling something about root chakras, the burning sting erupting from between his legs as the meridian's aligned.

"Jack, it's time to wake up. Jack, it's Chloe. This is isn't real!"

"Jack, it's Chloe. This is isn't real!"

"This isn't real!"

"This isn't real!"

----

… and then it wasn't. Chloe was around him, over him, shielding him from the illusion of agonies and violations. Illusions at least now. He wanted to reach for her but the fading paralysis of the nightmare still held him, still pressed on his chest along with her hands, yet he could still feel blood where the last needle had entered. Chloe was talking, however, giving him another sense to focus on her presence, away from the fading terror. "Just listen to me. You'll wake up soon. Jack, listen. Whatever's going on in your head, it's over. Get back here, Jack. No one can hurt you now."

He banged her head sharply when he finally snapped up off the couch, gasping. She was waiting for him, warm, real, strong. Chloe fell back, however, losing her balance enough that she found herself sitting on his lap and, ironically, rocking him awake. Minutes passed before he lifted his head and stared up at her, tears beginning to slide down his face even as his breaths began to slow and the safehouse and Chloe O'Brian overtook his reality. Chloe shifted to move off of him and felt a sudden warmth under her leg, followed by a sudden small chill. Whatever Jack had been dreaming about had sent a shock through his entire body, not just his mind. Jack realized it a moment after she did and turned his face away from her, blushing furiously, breath breaking into a sob. Chloe kept hold of him, her fingers hurting him as they dug into his arms, but keeping him focused. Facing her after a moment, Jack wiped at his eyes with the white cotton sleeve and then, just as quickly as he'd reddened, became pale, his breath coming in small gasps again as he reached up to touch the bruising lump at her hairline above her right eye.

"Oh God, I hurt you."

Chloe let him keep fingering the lump, as if he could make it vanish by force of guilt and will. "No, you didn't." She realized he'd forgotten his own state and situation completely when he saw the meaningless lump on her head. She didn't know whether to be touched or worried more. Winters had warned her that if he'd hurt her it could set him back further. She caught his and took it away from the wound, holding it to her lips for a moment. "No, you didn't. You listen, okay? You didn't do this, they did this, whoever hurt you… and I did it. I knew the risks. You? You're the innocent one here, Jack. You're just caught in the middle." Chloe forced him to look at her then, a firm hand on his jaw. "Jack, the only way you can hurt me if you don't let me help you, do you understand?"

He sat frozen, staring, the only movement his unsteady breaths and the slow, jerking flow of tears and then… he nodded and managed a smile. It faded after a long moment and his eyes lost focus. She realized he was going into a mild shock and stood up, pulling him to his feet. "Jack, help me here. Let's go; we'll… take care of things and then we're gonna' walk this off." Her hand moved absently on his back as she urged him forward toward the bath. He said nothing, barely reacting as she took care of what was needed and pulled a new pair of shorts onto him and a new robe. It occurred to her distantly that his pain was no longer lingering, that the tearing from the catheter must have healed. Sighing, she gathered him against her and he held on as they walked the perimeter of the safehouse four times, until she had exhausted him and knew he would sleep too deeply to dream. Bauer knew what she was doing and pushed himself.

Chloe wondered if Jack would even recall any of the past hour and hoped he didn't as she adjusted the two pillows between her back and the corner of the walls. She took a moment to make sure she was comfortable before she extended her hand to Jack as he stood on the side of the double bed in her room. There were no undertones, no tension, no imagined motives as he settled down on his left side, hips between her knees, and slowly came to rest with his forehead against the side of her neck. He was shaking but it passed as she spoke to him quietly, repeating over and over the trigger phrases that Winters had given her to focus his mind and lead it to a safe place. His arms were folded against his chest but relaxed after a few minutes and his weight pressed against her even more. Chloe O'Brian stared at the ceiling and wondered what she was going to tell him when he woke up if he didn't remember anything, especially why she'd changed his clothes. He'd trust whatever she told him so she would have to tell him the truth. One more thing to survive but they would. The solace was that he slept without dreams.

--------

"Mr. Buchanan, I have a call for you on line four. It's a woman, she's extremely upset. She claims to be a relative of Chloe O'Brian's."

Buchanan looked up at Curtis Manning oddly and then remembered he had left orders that anything involving Chloe O'Brian or Bauer go through Curtis as well on equal footing with him as director. No chain of command delay was to be involved between himself and the person who responsible for their safety. "Put in on the speaker."

Curtis shut the door and sat down across from the white-haired director, thumbing the speaker unit. "Mrs. Gibson, this is Curtis Manning. I'm here with the director of CTU. I understand you're calling about Chloe O'Brian. May I ask your relation to her?"

"She's my sister. I'm the person on her paperwork to call if something ever happened to her and I'd like an explanation for this sealed envelope that was just sent to me."

Buchanan leaned forward. "What does it say?"

"You don't know? How could you not know? I want to know where my sister is and what's happened to her."

Curtis frowned, confused. "Nothing has happened to her. She is being sequestered as part of a special assignment. It's a common occurrence and it's happened before. I'm still, we're still, not sure of the source of your concern."

"If this is common," the woman countered, a familiar sarcasm tainting her voice, "why did I receive paperwork telling me my sister was being isolated on medical leave due to acute post traumatic stress?"

Manning and Buchanan looked at one another for a moment, realizing someone responsible for the paperwork behind the medical leave granted Chloe O'Brian for Jack's sake had screwed up and notified her sister that it was she who was the patient. Buchanan smiled humorlessly. "I'm afraid those papers were sent in error."

"All of her information is here… dates exact to the ones where she fell off my radar, medical history, signatures. Why should I believe what you're saying?"

Curtis smiled himself. Suspicion ran in the family. Buchanan's breath escaped in a soundless sigh, deciding to put this on a more personal level. "Chloe is fine. I assure you. She signed off on those papers as part of an agreement to help another agent. The condition there is about him, not your sister."

There was a long pause and then a short, sharp laugh. "I don't know who you're trying to fool, Mr. Buchanan, but as much as I love my sister, Chlo' is not exactly Mother Theresa'."

Buchanan did smile at that; so did Manning. "Mrs. Gibson, it was a matter of Chloe being rather uniquely qualified for the job. I assure you she is fine and will contact you and tell you what she can as soon as possible."

There was another pause and a voice still heavy with doubt when it was broken. "I looked up this Gwen Winters, this doctor who signed off on this; I looked her up on the Internet. She's the world leading specialist in post-traumatic stress, called in for treatment of critical cases, has published dozen of papers, God knows what else. I know my sister has an important job but she probably doesn't warrant that kind of expenditure for your agency. So maybe you are telling the truth."

Buchanan thought about feeling relieved and then saw the look in Manning's eyes. Manning spoke next, filling in the unspoken word. "But…, Mrs. Gibson?"

"Well, I read the Internet for other things, too, about how Logan was brought down. It seems there's no logic to the explanations that were given. What the press was told amounts to nonsense under analysis and I'm not the average American who falls for nonsense. Given what's gone on in my sister's life in the past, I'm going to make a guess… that this might be about a certain Jack Bauer?"

Buchanan sighed and did smile then. He couldn't help it. He wondered if Chloe's sister needed a job. He hesitated for a moment and then, "Mrs. Gibson, would you care to visit us here at CTU?"

There was a moment's hesitation followed by a sigh. "I don't know where you are."

"Of course not. We'd be sending a car. I can offer you a secure line if you'd like to talk to your sister."

"Thank you. I'm ready whenever you are."

Buchanan cut the communication and sat back. "Some family."

"Is this advisable?"

"Well, I'd rather have her in here and assured that Chloe is fine rather than out on the Internet spreading rumors about Jack Bauer. Get her but have Winters clear any type of communication."


	6. Chapter 6

The thudding was different this time. It came without exhaustion, without terror, without biting the inside of his cheeks so hard that pain and taste of blood cancelled out sound as the thing that ruled his mind. This time the sound was somehow strong and gentle both, an ease instead of a torment. It surrounded him in a way he could not only hear but feel, a drumming warmth. Wherever he was now, he was at least being given the illusion he was safe. Daring to open one eye, he saw a stretch of blue material, tightly pulled over the smallish breasts of a woman. His head was tucked under her own. The thrumming was the blood pouring along the arteries of her throat. She was alive, captured too perhaps, and had taken pity on him or she was a cruel joke, a moment of comfort about to be snatched from him to accentuate the next torment. If she was real, she was nothing he deserved.

She moved slowly in her sleep. Her hips flexing against his waist. She was sitting up asleep, holding him between her upraised knees. As she shifted her chin came gently down on the back of his head. If he was dreaming, every sense was engaged. He could smell flowers, the scent coming from the lock of dark blond hair now in front of his face. It looked real. Another illusion. The pounding continued, willing him back to sleep, triggering a primal response somewhere in the back of his mind, drawing him to a place where he was utterly safe and had only the sound to fill his mind. If this was a game, if this was a trick, he'd let them win a little, just this time. He closed his eyes again and sighed, his breathing changing in the space of one breath, leaving him almost silently. However, the change somehow disturbed the woman. Her arms tightened about him; she lowered her head, muttering what sounded like the same phrase over and over. Her voice, though incoherent with sleep, cut through the fog.

Chloe.

This was no dream, no prelude to torture to make it all the worse. He was safe. He was home. Chloe was taking care of him, a bad habit she'd picked up, one that had probably ruined her career and had certainly endangered her life. She'd been calm though, trusted him, taken the gun without a moment's hesitation when he found her, guarded his almost stepson, took down David Palmer's killer when the time came. Hadn't blinked when he finished the job out of spite.

…why did you let them kill me, Jack?…

David Palmer was leaning over him, whispering in his ear, a dead man alive in his mind. He forced himself to calm. He hadn't feared ghosts since he was a child. Irony overtook the terror. Right now he was almost a child again. Why shouldn't he be afraid of the things that he was imagining? They were as real now as when he was six. He'd slept in his mother's arms then. She'd made him feel safe, talked him through dealing with monsters… only with Chloe the monsters were real and deadly. Until now…. Now he needed her to deal with both kinds, the ones he was forced to remember or imagine and the ones that lay beyond this once again temporary womb. … but David Palmer had been avenged. He could answer the ghost with a clear conscience. "I didn't let them kill you, David. The world just wasn't good enough for you."

Jack Bauer wrestled the demon and won. Awake now he lifted his head carefully, tilting Chloe's head back onto the stacked pillows and watching her as seconds passed into minutes. She had looped her thumbs into the belt of his robe to keep them around him; her hair was matted with sweat from sharing his body heat but even as he watched her forehead wrinkled and her lips twitched as she realized something had changed. Just as her eyes would have opened Bauer dropped his head back against her neck, feigning sleep and deceiving her for the first time in his life because it was best for both of them just this once. Knowing he'd been watching her sleep would have embarrassed her more than anything they had survived the past few days. Hidden in the turn of her neck, a smile tightened his face.

Chloe woke with a small start, not moving but awake nonetheless in an instant. She twisted her wrist to look at her watch and let her hand fall on back on Bauer's hip. Two in the afternoon and here she was in bed, hot, sweaty and with a man on top of her. She didn't dare think of Jack that way, especially not now, but she could appreciate the black humor in this as much… well, better than anybody. Smirking to herself or at herself, she didn't know which, she untangled her right arm and stroked his shoulders and scratched his head. Pleasant as a gagged and chained part of her thought this was, she was also thirsty and starving. She rolled her eyes and looked down at Jack Bauer, his hair as dark with sweat as her own, his right arm draped across her side, wondering if she could manage to lower him to the bed and slip out.

Cradling the back of his head, she lowered her knee and leaned to her right, easing him off of her leg and side and down to the bed. He was lighter than she worried. Chloe let go of his head last, resting it on the pillow before backing off the end of the bed with catlike movements. She stood with a sigh and headed out into the hallway, fanning herself and wiping her face and fighting the fact that she missed the feeling of Jack Bauer resting upon her. She scowled and sharply reminded herself that the only reason he had been was because he was trusting her, was because the goal of all this was to give him what he needed to get out of here, and that without her calling him in the first place, the Chinese would never have know he was alive. After this, they would go back to work, if Jack wanted that for himself, and put up with a few months of staring and wondering. Their job here was not common knowledge at CTU but the fact that they had vanished together, the tongues were probably already wagging.

Chloe made it to the kitchen but turned to stare around the rooms at the unfamiliar sound, humming from the direction of the shelf by the door. Her purse was on it, and lodged in the corner, so was her cell phone, now vibrating against it's charger and demanding her attention for the first time in days. There was a text message on the small color screen that drew her eyebrows toward each other.

Call me at CTU when you can. Cassie.

Chloe stared at the phone as if it had just blown skunk spray in her face. She hadn't seen Cassie since Edgar's funeral. Each CTU member was allowed to bring one family member in as long as they were sworn to secrecy. The nature of the deaths was bound to be a topic of discussion for the attendants and speakers and no one wanted to cause a panic. She and Cassie weren't terribly close but they were there for each other in this part of the country. Something had made her use the emergency contact number for CTU. God, now they knew there were two of her. If they thought she was bad wait till Cassie started twisting arms. She'd apparently already had some success. Chloe got a cup of coffee and beeped a dinner out of the microwave. Fed and sated, she looked toward the bedroom and decided she would wait to check on Jack. Cass never stayed on the phone very long. She probably just got worried and made enough noise that Mr. Buchanan had cracked. She had only been half-joking about the interrogation job when it came open.

Chloe pressed the speed dial after a moment of staring at the phone.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah, since when did you get demoted to switchboard, Curtis?"

A deep laugh answered her for a moment. "Your calls are routed to my phone first. How's Jack?"

"Better. We gave up the wheelchair in about a day and I haven't poisoned us. He'll be okay soon."

"You must be doing good by him. Thanks, Chloe. You got your sister's text?"

"Yeah, I guess she put the screws to you. Sorry."

"If she can clear a background check---."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You wouldn't find it so funny if you grew up with her. Is she there?"

"I'll be to her in a second. She's been trying to get information out of Doctor Winters."

"What the hell---?"

"Here you go, Chloe, and don't ask, the line's secure and it's private."

Chloe grimaced. She wouldn't have asked. Curtis knew his stuff. Her thoughts about her co-worker were interrupted in seconds. "Chlo', damn you, are you all right? These people are swearing to me you are but I won't believe it till I hear it from you. The fact that they let me in here didn't make me belie---."

"Cassie, shut up!"

Cassie Gibson shut the door to the office she'd been sequestered in and sighed sharply. "Well, I guess you are all right."

"Yeah, I am. I'm fine."

"Good, then why are you whisper---? Oh God, I was wrong and right. They are telling me the truth and you are with Bauer, aren't you?"

O'Brian nearly dropped the phone, then almost melted it with a look and bit her tongue, feeding her sister the on-message line. "Jack's M.I.A. I told you that."

"And these people told me different. They told me what you're doing."

Chloe glared at the tiny screen, deciding whether or not Cassie was tricking her. It wasn't going to work this time, and she was sober, too. "Who told you?"

"That lovely Curtis Manning, that pushover Mr. Buchanan, and this doctor, the blond from Johns Hopkins… something called "trust immersion". Sounds a little "Doctor Phil" to me."

Chloe assumed she meant Winters. She hadn't seen her pedigree but she also doubted that she'd gotten it from an Oprah spin-off. "What did they tell you? And what made you ask?"

"Apparently somebody in your insurance division screwed up and sent me papers that said you were on leave due to post traumatic stress, the-take-some-hostages-and-shoot-up-the-Seven-11-kind. I thought it might be true because the past few weeks you have been acting weird, but then, on second thought you'd been acting… "Jack – weird".

"Oh, crap."

She said that out loud, loud enough for her voice to carry to Jack Bauer as he stood in doorway of O'Brian's room, rested and stronger than he'd felt in days but still holding onto the doorframe. Hearing the anger in her voice, he moved forward, one hand on the pale beige wall to steady himself. Her back was to him, her cell phone was to her ear and he could tell by her posture that she was unhappy with the call or the caller. He reached the end of the wall then, just within earshot of her voice as it dropped to a whisper again in the otherwise silent apartment. He looked for something else to take hold of to continue. He didn't want her to think he was standing behind her listening. His legs might have been steady enough to carry him there with a few minutes more on them but he had moved quickly when he thought something had been wrong. He was not, however, about to crawl over to her. That was just a little too much for his pride to take, especially after last night. The next words of her half of the conversation stopped him, however, guiltily so but irresistibly as well.

"Okay, Cass, fine. Since you already figured it out and bullied government agents for the information, yeah, I am with Jack Bauer. He needed somebody for a little while, somebody he trusted.

"Yeah, I guess I was. I've done stuff for Jack, helped him out of a few messes. Winters said that because I've been the only person he's never had a reason to question that he had the best chance to get better with me.

"Yeah, little Florence Nightengale. Look, Cass, he saved my life, he ended up a target again because I couldn't get away from the jerks who'd killed President Palmer and two good friends of Jack's who worked at CTU. I can deal with helping him for a while.

"Don't be stupid. Of course I'm safe. That was the whole point, to have Jack where he was safe. I'm with him, duh."

Jack continued leaning on the doorframe, relaxing when he'd heard nothing he didn't already know. Chloe was as honest with everyone as she was with him, her own apparently equally argumentative and suspicious sister was as well. Chloe's next words stopped his retreat, however, bringing him to a halt that nearly caused him to fall.

"Well, yeah, he's got a girlfriend.

"Of course she isn't. She was the first one to complain. Trust me, it wasn't a lot of fun being in the room when this doctor came up with the plan in front of the three of us.

"Buchanan. That's where the screwed up medical leave papers came from.

"I didn't say anything. She made it pretty clear in front of Audrey Raines that she thought I was his best chance. I had more fun when Jack barfed on me an hour later.

"Well, what could she say? Not much after what Winters went on about as far as her and Jack.

Chloe paused obviously not thrilled with the subject but glad to have someone to finally tell, someone she could trust herself even if they did spend most of their time arguing. Chloe stretched back and stared up at the ceiling. "Winters brought up this scummy, well Audrey didn't know then, this scummy guy that she'd slept with when she thought Jack was dead.

"Yeah, I knew he wasn't but… You started this… you want me to finish?

"Okay, well then she went on about how Audrey didn't tell Jack the truth so she wouldn't be embarrassed, and how she kept up this front after his friends had died and he'd nearly choked it out of her. I mean Jack gets burned up enough with some of the crap he's had to do. She could have thought of that really. Winters was right about one thing, he didn't need Audrey doing a princess act that day. She thought he was dead, anyway. Crap, I slept with Spenser. He might not have been a traitor but if he were I'd've been the first one to turn him in and wouldn't have given him time to pull his drawers up."

Chloe laughed suddenly in answer to something her sister then said then sighed. "No, it's not my business. They didn't tell Jack all that and they told me not to, unless he started asking questions. If he'd starts asking those questions though I'll jump off Tower Records.

"I'm here because he needs a friend, Cass. You want to play shrink for me go talk to Winters. She's got my profile, too. I'd be hours of fun for shrink. Then we could grab my brilliant idiot of an ex in and have her figure out why he spends all day playing with women's feet.

"Yeah, actually, I probably don't. … So are you happy now? It's not me; it's Jack. You get the junior detective's badge instead of me this year at Thanksgiving.

"No, I'm not bringing Jack!" Chloe's voice rose above a whisper for the second time that night. "You're failing to miss the point, Sis. I'm supposed to be the one person who wouldn't take advantage of him.

"Yeah, I will. And look… I… I'm glad you called. You really should get off the beat and take that detective's exam or do you just enjoy tossing creeps around?

"No, I don't know. Text me in a couple of days, I'll call you when Jack's asleep if CTU will let you back in. Ask Curtis for a pass. It's not like the knocked you out to get you in the Batcave. You know where it is now.

"Okay, bye." Chloe stretched her legs out and cursed as she looked at the phone, realizing how long she had talked. Before she could move, however, she heard a movement behind her and saw Jack take his first shaky solo steps across the carpeting. She realized he could have slipped back into the room, hidden from her. Instead he was coming toward her slowly, accepting her hand when he'd closed most of the distance but not looking her in the eye. She sat down on the sofa and steadied him as he followed her.

He was blushing, she realized and not because he was only wearing his boxers and the white robe. It took him a moment to look her in the eye but he did. "I didn't mean to… I---."

"It's okay, Jack."

"No, it's not." His voice rose, stronger than it had been since they'd arrived and full of sudden doubt. "I stayed when I realized you were having a conversation I wasn't meant to hear. We're supposed to be here because I've always been able to trust you. You deserve the same res---." He fell silent when a finger fell across his lips and he looked through his lashes at her, his eyes pale and intense. She didn't breathe until he looked away.

"Jack, look at me." He did, for an instant, and then dropped his head against hers, mindful of the bruise he'd put there.

"I'm sorry." His voice sounded strained, tighter than it should have. Tears threatened behind it. Whatever regret he would have felt normally was now being filtered through a fragile emotional state, magnified to unrealistic proportions. Chloe moved closer, remembering what Winters had said, reinforcing a physical connection when the emotional one was strained. She took hold of his arms and pulled him a little more upright.

"Jack, would I ever say anything behind anyone's back that I wouldn't say to their face, especially you?"

An easy answer. He could manage that. "Of course not."

"I didn't now, either. We're here because we don't have the baggage, because before if we played games it could cost lives." Chloe squared her shoulders and grabbed the bull. "I guess you heard the stuff about Audrey, why she isn't the one who's here?" He nodded and then looked up, his eyes glassy and brimming. "Calm down, Jack." Chloe moved her hands slowly on his arms. "I know you're upset, you feel like people are taking control of your life and not asking you or telling you things but you can only deal with so much right now. Me, too. This doctor, she's supposed to be a real hot shot. I was doing what she said was best for you and she told me I could tell you whatever you wanted when you were ready, so you're the one in charge still, okay?"

He looked away from her, sighing tightly and crossing his hands to cover her own. "I have a confession to make, another one."

Chloe stroked his arms with her thumbs, mindful of the bruises she'd left after the nightmare. "Just all kind of bad tonight, aren't you?"

He managed dull, sad smile, "Late being honest again, maybe a little selfish." He lifted his head then and looked her in the eye, his pale eyes both sheepish and grateful, his lips trembling. "I wouldn't have agreed to this with anyone else, even Audrey. It would have been more awkward after a while, exposed to her, and dealing with … memories. The reasons Winters gave must have seemed pretty damning, too. I'm sorry she had to go through that in front of you and Bill but if you were this doctor I suppose it must have seemed like a stupid thing to lie about under the circumstances."

Chloe said nothing, especially not that she thought so, too, had even thought about saying something to Audrey later except that it wasn't her place to do so. She reached up finally and stroked his forehead, easing the worry lines there. Jack leaned into her touch, breathing deeply and feeling the constriction of his throat give way. Chloe growled after a few seconds and helped him to his feet. She brought him to the kitchen where he sat at the island and they talked about nothing as she fumbled through dinner and then walked the apartment again a few times before she took a shower and then drew him a bath. This time there were no contrived athletics, she simply stood behind him as she stripped off his shorts and helped him into the warm, clouded waters. He fell asleep again as she was washing his hair. Draped over her leg, soaking her again, Jack's mind wandered through the events of the past few hours, his thoughts a mixture of sympathy and sadness for Audrey, and an unexpected pang of jealousy as his drowsing mind turned for a moment to Spenser.


	7. Chapter 7

The bruises would take a few days to fade. Until then, she would just wear long sleeves. Whatever temporary damage Jack had done to her arms was unimportant as long as he didn't see it; in fact, she was glad that his strength was returning. She could hide the occasional wince behind a teasing scowl. The bruises came from where he had woken from nightmares and grabbed onto her as soon as he was able to move, three times in the past night.

In the end Chloe had suggested he give up and come into the living room while she finished up some of the work she could do here. He had watched her fingers fly over the keys of the computer for several hours, even asked a few questions and got back answers that would have sounded perfectly at home on "Star Trek". He had always been able to use the data she had given him with great effectiveness in the field, understanding how she extracted and retrieved it and forced her way into other data systems was something else. He suddenly felt as if he had had the caveman end of the jobs they had done together.

No one was hanging by a thread as Chloe worked, as had been so often the case with him; she was programming a pirated code to lay in wait inside of the Indonesian database of the most dangerous terrorist cell they had found to date. It would feed them data for months and all the while appear to be a leak occurring elsewhere. Code went from her mind to her fingers to function in silent anonymity, to save potentially thousands of lives. He wondered if it even occurred to her in that context and for the first time he found himself looking out of the balcony windows and wondering what would be beyond them once he was back on his feet, whether he would continue – or could – with CTU.

No one would look down on him if he thanked them for his recovery and left at this point but he wondered himself if he could live without making a difference. He'd had a choice when Chloe had called him on the day of David's assassination but it hadn't seemed like one. It had been the mere throwing of a switch. He had reasoned out where to meet her, how to get there in time, remembered how much fuel would be in the helicopter after the morning inspections, all within minutes and then he was gone. If Derek hadn't snuck out behind him, he might never have seen the boy or his mother again.

Leaving Frank Flynn and his new life behind hadn't even clearly registered with him, hadn't even been part of the thought process, or caused him one moment of delay. Like any plane he'd flown, the call had engaged his own mental autopilot, his course plotted to one destination, saving Chloe. Looking back he knew at least in part what had actually driven him, the mere fact that she trusted him to come.

Chloe suddenly sat back, turning away from the small table, and flexed her wrists. "That's it. The code we ripped from Hassan's in there now. Unless some geek gets real lucky we have at least three months of data coming to us. We're sharing it with Suvarov."

Jack's eyes widened slightly as he turned to face her on the sofa, twisting against the drag of his dark sweatpants. "He's still speaking to the U.S.?"

"He's still speaking to Martha Logan, said it was…. "foolish to hold a grudge against someone with so much courage"… and then signed a new treaty on the condition that she co-sign it with the new president." Chloe hesitated for a moment and flexed her hands again, pushing back the long sleeves of her dark green shirt. "She wants to see you, you know, when you feel like it. I've met her a few times while you were out of it."

Jack's face narrowed with curiosity she was glad to see. "How many times did they debrief her?"

"Just once. She kept coming by to check on you, Silly, probably a half dozen times. She was the one who found Winters and had… them… sign off on the expense. She's almost got more clout now than she did being First Lady." Chloe looked away as Jack looked down, humbled that he had been so important to someone who was possibly the most powerful woman in the country, possibly the free world. For her part, Chloe looked away for another reason: Secretary Heller had signed off on getting Jack the best possible care, had thrown the full weight of his department to protect him and deal with the Chinese, but mentioning Secretary Heller's name might well turn Jack's thoughts to Heller's daughter.

Chloe scowled at herself and wanted to bite the tongue that had betrayed her by already biting itself and conspiring to keep Jack from being reminded of Audrey. She was here to help Jack, nothing more. When this was over they would go back to what they had been whatever he decided to do; she would simply be his friend. She flexed her wrists again and looked up when Jack caught them in his hands. He simply held them for a moment, letting the warmth of his hands penetrate them and then he lowered the right one to her folded knee. She watched him with a slow smile as he began gently massaging her hand and her forearm, working until her skin was a bright pink. He laid her hand down and picked up the right one and repeated the process, his skin wonderfully rough against her own. The tension faded from both joints and she made a face at him. "Mphm, they may not want to work again now." She then rippled her fingers lightly and smiled when for the first time in days there was no accompanying twinge. "Thanks."

Jack shrugged carefully, avoiding her eyes suddenly. "That's not even a start to repay you for the past few days."

Chloe's eyes flashed upwards. "Yeah, I guess owing you my stupid life means nothing. Cut the crap, Jack. I'd be here just for you saying you wouldn't have done this with anybody else. No pressure, right?" She took the edge off her words with a rare smile, one that he realized he'd only seen her offer him.

Jack sat for a moment, saying nothing, then suddenly gathered her hands up again, studying them as if they would unleash the secrets of the Universe if he saw them from the right angle. Chloe sat frozen, wishing her heart would stop pounding. He was going to see her face flushing in a moment, look at her with that trust she could feel in the pit of her stomach. He didn't look up, however, just drew her hands to his chest and held them tightly, with a grip far stronger than he'd had in weeks. His head was bowed and she felt the tears before she saw them. Her hands already crushed in his, there was nothing she could do and silence seemed more appropriate to the moment for some reason.

Jack finally lifted his head, let her see him crying without reservation. She still said nothing, only returned his grip with stinging fingers once he had released her enough. He gathered himself after a few seconds and smiled. "No pressure, right?" he mimicked, his eyes locked on her own. "You're the only person who can say that to me and mean it. It's always from the outside for us."

Chloe nodded carefully, of two minds, or of two beings, the instinctive one she was whipping back into its cage and the clinical one who happily watched him falling into that mental safety net she was supposed to be spotting. The pain he was offering in his gaze, which suddenly no longer carried the dim glaze of detached shock, sent a small surge of relief through her. He was opening up, preparing himself to share it. Chloe backed up slightly, stroking his thumbs with her own. "It's okay, Jack. You're the boss, right? You tell me what you need---." Dumbass, she thought to herself. She knew what he thought he needed and knew she wasn't the one who was supposed to provide it. This was about Jack and getting him back to his life.

Jack looked at her more intensely when she cut off her words and pulled her hands to him again. She didn't stop the kiss he gave her fingers, but when he leaned toward her she pulled back and shook her head. "Jack, no. We can't do this if you're confused, even if you're confusing yourself."

He stopped leaning toward her, his breath catching as if he'd just realized what he'd been trying to do. A tremor ran through him and he shook his head. "I'm sorry." He let go of her hands but she simply moved them to his arms, stroking them cautiously.

"Forget it. I know this is kinda' weird, but I'm just taking care of you for now, that's all. We'll get you back to where you were. Okay?"

Bauer was crying again, quietly, the pain that had been so great he had only survived by denying it was now emerging, moving into a place where they could deal with it, just as Winters thought it might after a few days with his one constant. Unaware of the progress he was making, he simply followed as she turned him, let her take his weight as she eased him into her lap.

Jack lay still for a moment, looking up at Chloe as if she were the only thing in the world he didn't fear and then turned toward her, arms unclenching to slide around her waist, holding her uncomfortably tight. Jack's grip relented as the fingers she joked no longer wanted to work stroked his head, easing him into what she believed was a dreamless sleep. His outer peace, however, masked the temporary inner one; the Freudian Chloe who was only neurotransmitters, electricity, and subconscious impulses did let him kiss her.

An hour passed before Chloe realized it, long enough for her to become slightly less distracted by Jack sleeping in her lap. She leaned forward carefully and pulled the computer table over to her, making sure it was a comfortable distance over his head before she keyed into the Internet and then, cloaked, into the messenger service of CTU. Technically, that wasn't supposed to be possible. Bill was there, Curtis was there, Winters was on as well, at this point probably offering her expertise in the service of some of the other patients. Audrey was there also, still on a guest I.D. since she was not technically a CTU staffer. Chloe made a few passes on the keyboard and revealed herself to Curtis Manning only. He jumped her as she expected.

CManning: Hey, how R U:

COBrian: Fine.:

CManning: Jack:

Chloe hesitated, rolling her eyes, glad she didn't have a webcam with a wide-angle lens.

COBrian: He's resting. He's better. It's just like Winters said.:

CManning: Don't tell Jack that. He hates being predictable.:

Chloe smirked herself and left out that he would also hate the fact that he was being used for an armrest.

COBrian: It's a good thing this time. He's getting better according to what I was told. That's why I got up with you. Can you get in touch with Martha Logan? I think it would be good if Jack saw her. Not now. In a few days.:

CManning: Sure, she left contact info. I'll ask Doctor Winters when---.:

COBrian: Could you just skip that part? Jack already feels like everybody's controlling him even if it's for his own good. He's only doing this whole thing because of me.:

CManning: Chloe, this is the best PTSD specialist in the world. I think she should know about this. Mrs. Logan would be the first person besides you in there.:

COBrian: That's the point. Jack needs to see someone besides me in here, and don't tell anybody else there either. If you need me to run comms to coordinate your people to bring her in, I can do it from here.:

CManning: No kidding How long have you had this idea:

COBrian: About an hour.: There was a pause and she could only imagine the look on his face. Of course, it was for Jack so something this rash shouldn't have been a surprise.

CMannng: Why Martha Logan:

COBrian: Because he asked about her and got that stupid shy look on his face like he couldn't believe she'd bothered checking on him.:

CManning: But why not tell Winters:

COBrian: Because Jack gets the most upset when he's reminded somebody else is pulling all these strings. If you and I pull them, it's different. We're a team.:

CManning: Chloe, she's not here to do him any harm.:

COBrian: I know that but she said it herself – she's his "captor" now. If we can do something that's she's not authorizing I think it'd be just like old times. Curtis, come on. I know I'm right. This is the Curtis who had Lynn McGill dragged off, right? How tough is this? I'll help you. We'll help Jack."

There was a long pause before the next set of green words came up on the screen and Chloe bit her lip with relief.

CManning: When:

COBrian: That's up to you. We're not going anywhere. If I don't give you a hand from here, I need a few hours notice to help Jack be ready.:

CManning: I'll text you once I know when she'll be here. Do you think she'll say anything:

COBrian: No. Aaron Pierce knows Jack well enough to tell her that this is okay.:

CManning: Okay, I'll be in touch. If you change your mind about this…:

COBrian: I won't unless something happens. Thanks, Curtis.:

CManning: Thank me after the disciplinary hearing:

CManning signed off at---.

Chloe shut the computer down and sat back, absently stroking Jack's sleeping form. He turned away from her and stretched slightly and the fact that he was moving told her he wasn't dreaming; he turned onto his back and with a sigh, captured her hand.


	8. Chapter 8

"We'll be there as soon as you say. And don't worry, I have plenty I can do here if this doesn't work out."

"Thank you, Mrs. Logan."

There was a long slowly saddening moment of silence on the other end of the connection. "Do me a favor, Curtis. Please, please just call me Martha."

"I'd be honored." Smiling Curtis Manning shut the phone and walked back into CTU slowly, having left the confines of the building to take the call that Martha Logan had arrived in Los Angeles. She'd given everyone but Aaron an excuse about considering venues for an event and going to visit the Getty Museum for an exhibit she had just learned about and had an intense interest in seeing. In truth, she'd looked up the Getty site on the Internet and found one to use as an excuse to be in L.A. the moment that Curtis Manning had called and said they were going to try to arrange for her to see Jack Bauer, this time conscious.

The next part was up to Curtis, find a way to sneak her into CTU without anyone knowing. Fortunately, he not only knew the lay of the land but was also in charge of it. His doubts that this was the right thing to do in going behind the doctor's back were further reduced when Aaron Pierce had given a little smile on the vid-phone and whispered something to Martha before she agreed. It had been a hard sell, an impossible one, without him because Winters had been brought in for Jack at Martha Logan's insistence.

Curtis walked past the corridor that led to the apartment where Jack and Chloe were sequestered. Two guards stood outside it now, chatting but alert, wondering what they were guarding no doubt. If Jack was agreeable to seeing Martha than they would still be on duty a few hours from now. He didn't give them any more than a cursory nod and kept going, back in the bowels of CTU several twists and two sealed doors later. He rolled his eyes mildly as he took in the sight of his co-workers. It still didn't feel right to be fooling them but it felt more right, now that he thought of it ,to be helping Jack on the sly.

Chloe carefully polished up the last of the dishes and put them away, well aware that Jack was studying her, probably wondering why it was so important to her to have the place in order. She had almost pulled the lunch dishes out from under him to get the plate cleaned. When the last towel was finally in place and she started to make an effort to scurry elsewhere, he caught her arm.

"Want to tell me what's with the Martha Stewart act?"

That stopped her dead and with a rare, stifled giggle escaping her throat. "It's not an act." She sobered suddenly and turned to face him, jerking her head in the direction of the living room area. If anything it was straighter than the kitchen. She'd worked around him as he'd used her computer to skim through a few new protocols put in place at CTU, ones that gave field agents with at least five years seniority more leeway for field decisions if they had proven records. There was a second proposal to match their assignments up with that of a specific senior analyst instead of letting them get hold of whoever would be on call. It sounded terribly familiar.

"We need to talk," Chloe mumbled, as if saying something she regretted. It was such a rare thing for her when speaking to him that Jack thought he'd misheard her.

"Walk? Let me get a little rest from the last few---."

"No, Jack, talk. I did something and I don't know if you're ready."

Jack lowered his head and smiled gently at the ground, taking hold of her arm. "You're the one who's supposed to have me figured out and all those things you promised to "screw up", well, you've failed to deliver."

Chloe's smile twitched when he lifted his head and met her eyes through his lashes. "Yeah, sorry about that, surprised myself. I generally don't do the Florence Nightingale thing. You should see my collection of dead plants and goldfish skeletons."

He laughed quietly, they both did, Bauer still enjoying that he had discovered her predictably sarcastic but self-deprecating sense of humor. "You needed to tell me something?"

"Well, ask you, it depends on if you want to do it."

Jack stood up from the breakfast island and slid his arm around her, not so much for balance any longer as companionship. Her arm slid around his waist automatically and they walked the short distance to the sofa and sat down, Jack still more awkwardly than he might otherwise have. "So, what's this about?"

The ice broken, Chloe looked him in the eye. "I asked Curtis if he could get Martha Logan to come here and see you but we did it without telling Winters."

Jack sat up slightly, his thin lips parting. He looked downward again as if gauging his own response. A moment passed as he felt Chloe's gaze grow more worried. "Why didn't you tell Dr. Winters?"

Chloe shrugged and pulled back from him a little, as if she were uncomfortable with being so close while revealing just how well she did know him. "Because if… if she knew you were up to having someone else around, …if you are, she'd probably be up here the next minute, trying to mess with your head before you were ready. Martha Logan agreed to do it."

"I thought you told me she was the one who found Winters?"

"Aaron Pierce told her Curtis and I knew what we were doing, that it was too soon for Winters to be up here poking around in your head. You just needed… your friends still."

"So you broke the rules, let me escape the microscope?"

"Yeah, I guess. If you want. Mrs. Logan's just waiting to hear from us but she said to tell you that it's up to you, no pressure."

Jack sighed and turned his face from O'Brian but at the same time gently took her hand. "I think I can believe it, too, coming from her. She knows what pressure is."

Chloe nodded but didn't look at him, not wanting him to see in her eyes how much she hoped this was the right thing to have done. "So, what should I do?"

Jack sat up a bit straighter and pulled his still slightly damp shirt away from his chest. "I owe her the fact that I'm even alive, certainly that I'm free. You did the right thing, Chloe, and you did it the right way." He lifted her chin towards him then and shared a charming and guilty smile with her. She poked him suddenly and stood.

"You need a shower, Jack. Come on." She helped him up and kept her hand on his back as they headed toward the large bath. He sat down on her bed as she started the water and then she picked up her phone and sent a quick text to Curtis. "She's in a hotel about twenty miles north. She told everyone she was here to go to the Getty for something. We have time. It's Saturday, that means all-day rush hour. The 405 will be jammed."

It took little time for the bath to be filled and covered with foam. Chloe stripped off Jack's shirt and noticed absently that it took him only a hand on her back to steady himself as he climbed out of his sweats and briefs. Still wary of his balance on the wet surface, however, he clung to her as she helped him down into the bath. His hand remained on her leg as she carefully worked the sponge around the scars on his back. She still wasn't used to them by any means but she had finally gotten control of the urge to throw up. 

Chloe had long since figured out that Bauer had recovered enough strength that he no longer technically needed her with him in the bath. He'd been using the facilities otherwise on his own since his legs would hold him in the past few days. She had feeling that he simply still craved a human touch that was not intended to be cruel. Chloe finished with his hair and straightened the leg he was leaning over, wondering what she should wear to host a former First Lady in a safehouse as she looked at her soaked gray sweatpants. She'd already found something for Jack. The sound of the doorbell stopped her musing as she reached to help lift him from the bath.

"Crap, what's going on? She's not supposed to be here for another hour almost."

Jack shook his head. "Help me out of here."

"I will, Jack. Hold on. I'll just ask her to wait."

"Chloe, don't. I … I really need…"

She stopped turning back to him, grunting and scowling when she saw herself in the mirror. 'I know, Jack. We'll be okay. She won't mind waiting. I made coffee already, remember?" She bent down quickly and handed him a towel to dry his face. She didn't see him reach out and Jack watched her run out with the breaths suddenly shortening their journey in and out of his body, his hands twisting into the gray terry cloth.

Chloe brushed her hair back from her face and groaned to herself. She looked like hell on top of being soaked, Jack was naked two rooms away, and the former First Lady was pressing her doorbell. She suddenly missed the simplicity of chasing terrorists with nice, predictable bombs and viruses. At least then it wasn't personal.

Martha Logan's smile, if anything, became even more kind when Chloe opened the triple-locked door and stared at her in her beautiful black pantsuit and satiny pink blouse. Her hair was styled and she smelled of expensive perfume (Chloe couldn't remember the last time she'd worn any.) Logan wasn't carrying a purse. Her hand extended to O'Brian automatically, ignoring her disheveled and wet appearance. "It's good to see you, Agent O'Brian."

"Uh just… Chloe, okay? Look, I'm sorry. I'm a mess. We didn't think you'd be here for a while yet."

"I changed hotels to be closer to LAX," Martha answered, apology in her voice. "How is Jack?"

Her answer didn't come from the smaller woman just inside of the doorway but from two rooms away, the sound of a crash that was unmistakably Jack falling to the tiled floor. Chloe froze for a second and then, with a shock-tainted memory that she was supposed to be on her best behavior looked up at Martha Logan in a mild panic. "Excuse me." She bolted toward the bath.

Jack, as she feared was sprawled across the floor; there was blood on his face from a cut on his forehead and a smear of red on the pedestal of the sink. He was naked, of course, still and he was visibly shaking. The tile was awash with water and bubbles, bottles of shampoo and soap were strewn about the floor. Chloe snatched a towel from the shelf above the toilet and dropped to her knees next to him, pressing the corner to the cut on his head. It wasn't bad by any means, just profusely bleeding compared to its size.

"Jack, what happened?"

He didn't answer at first, merely clung to the arm supporting his head while the opposite hand staunched the bleeding. "You were gone," he said quietly, his voice shaking, as if those three words were all the explanation needed.

Chloe pulled back a little as the blood stopped flowing and dropped the towel, her hand running with gentle, but now absent familiarity over his side, his hip and his leg. "Are you hurt anywhere but your head?"

"No."

"All right, let's sit up, okay?"

Jack's free arm reached for her weakly and she pulled it around her neck and lifted his torso off the floor, his legs straight out in front of him, his back to the wall opposite the commode.

"Are you dizzy?"

"No."

"How many fingers?"

"Three."

"Do you feel sick?"

"No."

Chloe rolled her eyes in relief. "Okay, no concussion. What happened? Why did you get out the tub without me?"

Jack shook his head and ran a hand over his face, his thin hair now long enough to be plastered to his forehead. "I couldn't stand the water, not alone. I should have told… They locked me in a ballast hold… pretended to drown me."

"More than once, huh?"

Jack, shivered, as much from the memory as the chill of the tile. "I lost count."

O'Brian bit back the flare of impotent anger with an effort that brought tears to her eyes. She ground her teeth and focused on the trembling man before her. "Jack, you didn't say anything about that. Why didn't you tell me all those times before when you were in here?"

Jack looked up at her then, smiling dully, his eyes beginning to lose focus. "It never mattered the other times; you were here."

Chloe kept hold of his gaze with effort, suddenly unable to breathe. "Oh Jack, what the hell am I supposed to say to that? Don't you play fair at anything?" She wiped the cut on his forehead again and threw the towel over him just as Martha Logan walked into the room; her suit jacket was gone and her sleeves were rolled up. The blond hair that had been so carefully styled was now trapped in a no-nonsense pony-tail.

Without pausing, Martha Logan crossed the room and dropped to her knees next to a shocked and blushing Jack Bauer, gently tilting back his head and pulling his eyelids wider. Unconcerned with his state of undress, she wrapped her arm around his wet shoulders and gestured for Chloe to support him from the other side. "Come on, Jack, let's get you straightened up. Are you ready?"

Bauer was too stunned and uncomfortable to be anything but ready, but in the same moment, he knew he could trust Martha Logan as well. He nodded and managed a smile before closing his eyes and letting his head drop. Between the two of them, Chloe and Martha lifted him easily, Chloe snatching the towel over his privates just before it would have hit the wet floor. Jack's arms around both their shoulders, she held it for him until he was settled once again on Chloe's bed, clutching at it with nervous exhaustion. He wanted to be left alone for a moment but Martha was back, drying him quickly.

"Don't bother. I helped raise two younger brothers whose hobbies were football and emergency room nurses and volunteered in V.A. hospitals since I was eighteen. That's how I met what-his-name when he was campaigning. Now imagine if I were some perky eighteen year old blond fussing after you, that'd be a lot tougher, maybe for both of us." By the time she finished talking, he was dry enough that she was glancing around for clothes but her hand fell suddenly to his hip and patted it gently. "Chloe, get some ice, this is going to bruise but twenty minutes of cold should keep it from swelling much."

Chloe, who had been standing back and slightly, although she'd never admit it, cowed by the take-charge attitude of the former First Lady, nodded and backed toward the door. She knew Jack was safe, of course, she just didn't know if he could deal with the unexpectedly overwhelming presence of Martha Logan. The former First Lady gave her a quick nod that Bauer couldn't see as she pulled the undershirt over his head and Chloe backed out of the room with a confused shrug.

Jack sighed and met Martha Logan's eyes as she knelt down in front of him, all business and gentle determination as she slid his boxers up and divested him of the towel in one motion as they stood, tossing it behind her back into the bathroom. She pulled the white robe around him as he sat down and left him to deal with the belt. "Okay, then, nice to know I've still got that candy striper thing. Your right shin's pretty banged up, too, by the way but any how, better now?"

Jack was staring. He couldn't help it. The Martha Logan he had been told about by Aaron was a fragile, withdrawn, drug-dependent waif. The woman before him was nothing of the sort, had a force of personality that was both gentle and irresistible. He found his voice but looked away, suddenly remembering how much he owed this woman. She had not only lobbied for his rescue; she had turned on her own husband on little more than his word via Aaron. "Much, thanks." She had actually moved almost too fast for him to be embarrassed.

Martha continued kneeling in front of him and then suddenly patted his leg. "Not what you expected, am I?" She grinned warmly and sat down beside him, taking his hand in both of hers and resting it on her leg. "Jack, … may I call you that?"

A mild blush did now darken Bauer's face but not as deeply as he would have thought. "I think we've reached the first name stage."

Martha nodded gamely and wished he would look up but wasn't about to push it. Bauer had a bad habit of studying the floor and flicking his gaze upward, as if he only wanted a glimpse of anything where he was out of his depth. That was a lot of things for now. She took advantage of it, however, when Chloe O'Brian reappeared at the doorway, an icepack and dish towel in her hands. Behind Bauer's back, Martha Logan raised a hand for her to stay clear. Chloe did, her lips compressed, worried for Jack but knowing he was undoubtedly safe. The hand behind Bauer's back raised to his shoulder and the chiding tone of Logan's voice suddenly became serious. "I didn't just come here to finally meet you, or even just to thank you, I came because I think I can help, I hope, because I want you to get past all this and have the life you want, wherever that may be."

Jack did turn to look up at her then, confusion in the crease of his eyes and the trembling of his bottom lip. He swallowed and looked away again, "I appreciate your help, Mrs. Logan… Martha, and I'm sorry about what you had to go through. Aaron gave me some idea when I was telling him about the wire. You're a courageous woman."

"Thank you, but this isn't about me now. I'm not whole yet, but I will be and I am at peace, and I have my spirit back, none of which would be happening if you hadn't acted as you did that day. I was a small final piece to a nightmare you unraveled."

Jack did blush this time, more deeply than when the former First Lady was lifting him naked and bleeding off a bathroom floor. She noticed the blush and shook her head. This time she did use her crooked finger to lift his chin and bring his eyes to meet her own. "It wasn't for the same reasons, and God knows it wasn't as agonizing, but I've been in the darkness you're trying to see past, Jack. I've stood in that place where nothing is real but fear." Logan's voice broke but she recovered herself and gently countered Jack's attempts to withdraw. "Sweetheart, look at me. We're partners here. I've gotten free of that place where I could only scream "why", and I've screamed back into that emptiness." She stopped talking, pulling Bauer into her arms as he folded in on himself, trembling more and more fiercely as she voiced what he had not or could not. It had ceased to matter that this was the former First Lady, that she was who she had become now, she was simply a kindred, wounded soul who had come to show him that she had healed, that she was, in fact, even stronger. Martha turned on the bed and rocked him, feeling her own tears sting and spill, going from her chin to the back of his head. She heard him gasping, half-formed questions falling from his dry lips but there were no answers, not yet. Logan tilted his head back enough to see his face.

"You're letting us help you, that's all you need to do for now."

Jack clung to her arm for several minutes, letting her calm him, listening as she spoke of her own journey, offered him all that she had learned along the way. He straightened a little after a while, his emotions too tumbled for speech. She knew that, too, and moved her thumbs across his cheeks. "You know you're not alone; that's the first thing, right?" He nodded, meeting her eyes now, needing to see the strength that was in them now. If she could survive so would he and she had made sure he had the same resources as herself with the added benefit of her example. "And you know how strong you can be, but strength is like anything else, it needs a source, sometimes we have it but sometimes it has to come from the people around us; that's where you are now, Jack. You let us do that for you. All any of us wants is for you to find yourself again because the people around you are lucky to have you, and this country has been lucky to have you. As you're ready, you tell us what you need. If you don't know, we'll help you find it.."

Jack sighed into his hands as they came up to dry-wash his face. His throat was dry and still tight, but both problems were remedied as Chloe appeared; she held a glass of water to lips and cradled his head as he drank. He smiled up at her and then over at Martha. "You've done so much, I don't ---."

Martha Logan's strong hands suddenly pressed against either side of his jaw. "I might have, Chloe might have, Bill Buchanan and Curtis might have, and quite a few other people, but this isn't about you owing anything to us, Jack Bauer. This is about what you owe yourself, your daughter, and your future." The deadly serious tone of her voice eased and a warm smile replaced the stern look she was giving him. "Let me maybe save you a little bit of time and cut to the chase. What you have to learn in the end is that you can trust yourself again and for someone with the strength you have it's just a matter of time before you do. Until then, you trust us and you'll see we trust you."

Jack's looked, his breaths harsh, as if he didn't want to see himself slowly reach to embrace Martha Logan. She held him tightly, swaying for a moment before letting him go and pulling his neck down to kiss his forehead. Unexpectedly, he reached out to the side and pulled Chloe into a one-armed embrace as Martha released him. For the first time since he regained consciousness, for the first time since before he'd been taken, he knew there could be an end to this, that he deserved to silence the demons that were his own and those that had been forced upon him. Chloe saw the change in him the moment she looked down and she wiped a sudden tear from her eye, suddenly remembering the wrapped ice-pack in her hand.

"Hey, how about I walk Mrs. Logan… Martha out and I'll be right back?"

Jack held off answering her to squeeze Logan's hands one more time. "Okay. Forgive me, I don't think I'll be walking you to the door", he offered an embarrassed smile to the former First Lady and in return she gave him a final kiss on the top of his head.

"I'll be in touch. If you need anything, Chloe has my number now, and I expect to hear from you when you don't need anything, too. That goes for both of you." Chloe smiled nervously and brushed her hair back from her face as she walked the taller woman out. They stopped at the door and the CTU agent looked Logan in the eye.

"Thanks, sorry this wasn't what you had in mind. "

Martha shook her head quickly. "I didn't have anything in mind, Chloe, but to see if there was anything more I could do for Jack. It might have been a little dicey but as long as he wasn't hurt that fall was probably a good thing. It let me get to him ."

"Yeah, I think you did him more good than I have for a week."

Martha glared. "Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. He was only ready to listen to me because someone's done for him what Aaron did for me, put that safety net back in place. You anchor it for him now and he'll soon have it anchored on his own. … and that offer about needing anything, it truly does extend to you, too, Chloe. Jack couldn't have brought down my murdering jackass of a husband without you. Personally and for this country I owe you very large debt." She gave the CTU agent a quick hug and left Chloe standing at the triple-locked door, shaking her head in mild disbelief.

With a sigh, Chloe retrieved her laptop and returned to her room, her barefoot steps silent. She watched Jack from the doorway and then sat on the bed and put her laptop down. She reached over Bauer to retrieve the icepack laying uselessly beside him, wrapping it more tightly in the towel. He didn't react as she folded back the flap of his robe and looked at the angry bruise just peeking out from the top of his briefs, nor when she pulled them down just a bit to get a better look at the black and blue flesh were most of his weight, uncontrolled, had landed. He did groan softly as she felt the perimeter of the swelling and then gently rubbed his back just above it. "I'm gonna put this ice on here now, okay, just for a while."

Jack nodded slowly and drifted off, barely flinching as she applied the ice-pack and locked it in place with the retied belt. She waited until he was asleep and set about once again cleaning up the bathroom, her heart pounding a bit faster as she retrieved the blood-stained towel, Jack's voice suddenly resounding through her head, "It never mattered the other times; you were here." She had done what she always did when he said it, blurted out the first thing that came to her mind, and now with the panic of finding him bleeding on the floor over she still had no answer, what the hell was she supposed to have said to that? Certainly not tell him that for an insane instant she'd wanted to shut the door and lock him away from the evils of the world for the rest of their lives.

Sighing, Chloe finished cleaning the bath, tossing the wet towel over the rack to dry and wiping the blood off the sink pedestal last. She returned to her small bedroom and without thinking, settled down on the bed next to Jack and rested her laptop against her upraised knees. It took only a moment before he shifted and leaned back, his shoulders grinding gently back against the turn of her hip. She realized immediately that she probably shouldn't have parked herself on the bed without cause but it had been so absent and natural that thinking hadn't entered into it and now she would disturb him more, probably, if she removed herself to the chair where she should have been. It was hard enough that he'd become as dependent upon her as he was, she didn't have the right to reinforce it when it wasn't necessary. The point was to get him back to his own life, to Audrey, to whatever he wanted to do and have him be able to function as he had been; the point was not to have him be anything other than the friend he was and absently parking in his bed was definitely out of bounds. Chastising herself not to do this again but not moving, Chloe logged into the CTU server and pulled up what work she could do from here. Screwing up life for the bad guys was a lot easier to think about than how she might have screwed up Jack's.


	9. Chapter 9

"Misses… uhm Martha." Curtis Manning held out his hand and gestured Martha Logan into the undecorated concrete hallway that led back to CTU. "It would be down this way. I'll need to get you a pass to see Bill Buchanan. He's trying to work out the bugs with the person filling in for Chloe. Don't expect him to be in the best of moods."

Martha Logan stopped as they entered the corridor that split into different directions inside of CTU, taking in Curtis Manning in his navy suit and gray shirt with a quick gaze. "I don't intend to interrupt Mr. Buchanan at the moment, but I would very much like to see Gwen Winters."

Curtis stopped in his tracks and took a guilty breath, his eyes dropping for a moment. "You knew… she did?"

"Now now… no, I kept your secret. It was best for Jack. She doesn't know I'm here but I think it's time she did."

Curtis hesitated and then smiled. "Yeah. This way."

Gwen Winters opened the door to her glass-walled office with a bright smile and hugged Martha Logan quickly before inviting her to sit down across from her cluttered desk. "What brings you here? I didn't think the news stories were right about some function at the Getty. Does a display of Etruscan pottery really warrant your attention?"

"No, but it was the display that was leaving at a pressingly convenient time. I'm here because of Jack Bauer."

Winters sighed and clasped her hands under her chin. "I can imagine. He's about the worst case I've dealt with in longer than I can remember but he's also got the best chance of coming through it on the same scale. The Chinese are very good at what they do, but crude in some ways. They go from sophisticated sensory abuse to acupuncture intended to simply inflict pain. The upshot of the diversity is that it's hard for victim to psychologically prepare, to use conditioning tricks. As for Bauer, his personal life and professional experiences before now don't make this any easier. I know you have an interest in this, but I can't say much more. I'll be glad to have you see him as soon as he and Chloe O'Brian think he's ready to start reintegrating again."

Martha Logan smiled and sat forward, taking off her jacket and revealing that the dry clean only material was water-stained and still slightly damp. "Actually, I just left him."

Not even the barest touch of surprise came to Gwen Winters face. She frowned with consideration and sat back, unclasping her hands and brushing imagined hairs off her warm tan dress. "Just what I was hoping to hear."

A knock interrupted her next words.

"Come in."

Bill Buchanan entered the room with quiet steps, shaking Martha Logan's hand and taking the other chair. "You brought us a real treasure here, Martha. She's helped a good number of our people, to say nothing, I hope, of Jack Bauer."

"I know what she did for me. I owed her to Jack."

Winters had the grace to roll her eyes very slightly. "Speaking of whom, Bill, your people have disobeyed me just a bit. I suspect it was Mr. Manning in league with Chloe." She turned to Martha Logan with a thin smile. "Correct?"

"Yes, a little reluctantly though. I think Chloe browbeat him into it."

Bill Buchanan realized he was out of a very brief loop and nailed both women with a stern look. Martha faked a withered gaze and patted his hand. "I've been up to see Jack, all at the secretive request of Chloe O'Brian and Curtis Manning. They opted to leave Dr. Winters out of the equation."

Buchanan scowled unhappily. "It might be one thing in field operations but this is a matter of a medical condition of a man I hope to see functional here again. Neither of them is qualified to defy---."

Gwen Winters raised a hand to stop the quiet tirade. "Don't worry about it. It's only defiance on a technicality. This was just what I expected, actually what I was hoping for."

Martha Logan only smiled but Buchanan continued staring at her, his eyes brightened by the light color of his suit. "Meaning?"

"Come on, Mr. Buchanan – Bill, what's the one thing that your people seemed to invariably do when they have to choose between Bauer and authority?"

A small contemplative smile suddenly touched the corners of Buchanan's narrow lips. "I see. What else would feel more normalizing to Jack Bauer than his friends ignoring the rules? How was he?"

Martha sobered a little and then the classic lines of her face took on sudden neutrality, turning the analysis she had been taught to use herself toward her memories of what she had seen of Bauer. "It's hard to say exactly this time. He took a bad fall while I was there. He seemed to have some sort of episode when Chloe left him in the bath water."

"They probably pretended to drown him at least a few dozen times when they got tired of everything else," Winters offered, her disgust not entirely hidden. "I'm sorry, go on."

"I'm guessing he panicked and fell pulling himself out. I followed Chloe after a few seconds and watched them for a moment. He calmed down almost the moment she was with him. In fact he was actually very passive with me when he was naked and we were alone. I sent Chloe off to get some ice where he'd bruised himself."

Winters gaze went inward for a moment. "He didn't withdraw?"

"No, he seemed a little embarrassed but mostly resigned, almost obedient, and I'm a stranger to him. He blushed a bit and let me dress him, even joked a little when I asked if I could call him by his first name. After that I told him why I came, what I wanted for him, and that I'd been where he was in my own way. I also told him that I wouldn't have gotten away without his bringing down…," an expression of pure disgust rippled for a moment over Martha Logan's face, any word she might have used to name the man who had been her husband and President failing to pass her lips. "Well, anyhow, outside of the fall, he looked fairly healthy… uh… physically," she flashed a brief smile at the other two, "and he even told me he was sorry about what I had been through. Strange to hear from the man who freed me from it." Martha's own gaze turned inward and she relayed the rest of her conversation with Bauer and her quick impressions of what she had seen pass between him and Chloe O'Brian.

Gwen Winters took notes constantly, asking for a layperson's impressions was not normally part of what she would have done but the situation was unique and so was the layperson sharing those impressions. Martha Logan had indeed known darkness, had known betrayal, but then had known friendship and once again found out how much strength had been hiding within her. In a way it was easier for her to recognize it than someone seeking it with a PhD who couldn't know what it felt like from the inside.

"That was pretty much it. He took hold of Chloe for a moment at the end of talk and I could see he felt like he might get to the end of the tunnel for the first time. It's as scary as it is a relief but … well, here I am, trying to turn the favor around."

Bill Buchanan smiled at Logan with genuine admiration. "We all appreciate it, not just now but what you did that day. I know there are things you want to put behind you, but I hope not everything."

"Not at all," Martha answered. Her reply was immediate, unshaken. "That was the day I remembered who I had been, and started living Martha's life again." She came to her feet with a sigh and spread her hands. "I don't think I can tell you any more."

"You've told me a lot, Martha. Let's get some dinner in about an hour. I just want to compress these notes and then flesh them out when I go home."

Bill stood up and offered the former First Lady his arm. "Let me show you the rest of this place. We've been able to upgrade quite a bit since the Congressional Sub-Committee on Intelligence redirected its funds to where they seem to have done the most good."

She took his arm and waved a quick good-bye to Gwen Winters, "You sound like a man who has a right to be proud."

Winters waved good-bye a full ten seconds after they'd left, surprised to find them gone and the going back to the crunched notes she had made about Martha's impressions of Bauer. Trust Immersion was not something she often did since it relied so much in its initial stages on people untrained in psychological disciplines or even medical ones but the level of security it built was often the foundation she needed to begin her part of the job. An hour passed before she realized it and Martha Logan knocked back on the door.

"You can't hide in here if we all know where you are. Time to eat."

Gwen stood up quickly, folding up the thick file. "No, I'm not one of those people who compromises themselves to get the job done. Some of the rest of us have to be selfish so we have the brains to glue the rest of the people in this line of work back together. I want to try the Thai place up on La Cienega."

There was a limo waiting for them outside the caverns of CTU, a gray one the size of a small house. Winters started to get in and stopped. "Damn it, I forgot the file on Wellman. I need to go back. It's locked where only I can get it."

Martha stopped getting in herself. "I need the little girl's room anyhow. I'll go with you." She tapped on the roof of the car. "Robert, put these windows down. We'll be right back and I want the fresh air, well, what you can get of it in L.A." The windows on the limo were humming down as the two women left, passing - unseen through the tinted windows of her SUV- a third. Audrey Raines shifted back as they passed her six rows of cars away, on her own way to dinner. She recognized Martha Logan, of course, as quickly as she would have recognized any of the others with whom she worked day to day and, of course, knew that it had been Martha Logan who had brought Gwyneth Winters here for Jack. Audrey played for a moment with the idea of climbing out of the car and confronting them both, politely of course, but demanding some answers. Jack had been gone for over a week now, tucked in a safe-house with, of all people, Chloe O'Brian. The buzz about her disappearing at the same time as Jack had been released from Medical were now the biggest topic of gossip going and no doubt the source of the glances and shrugs directed her way from people standing outside the bathroom or queued up at the proverbial water cooler.

No, no point in making an ass of herself to anyone else. She would have to trust Jack. She would even have to trust Chloe. Audrey picked up her keys and turned back toward the windshield as Winters and Logan passed out of sight, sliding her key in the ignition. It was then she noticed the open windows the limo and remembered the empty hands of the platinum-haired doctor as she and Logan had walked back. There had been a file in them on their way to the car. The chance that it wasn't Jack's...

Indecision crippled Raines for a moment as well as the undeniable fact that what she was thinking of doing was wrong, would be violating Jack's privacy once again, would be lots of things. She hesitated as she reached for the door handle but if she had learned anything in her time with Jack, it was simply do it now if you were going to do it, especially if one was breaking the rules. Audrey slid from the vehicle and popped the hood, touching a few places to dirty her hands on the caked grease of the engine and then loosening the distributor wires. She laid them close to the connection point, hiding their intended malfunction. Jaw clenched, she slammed her ankle against the car bumper, enough to redden and later bruise it.

Not giving herself time to allow for her doubts, she hobbled over to the limo and tapped on the driver's window.

"Ma'am?"

"I work at CTU and I can't get my car to start. Would you mind looking at it? I'm going home. I'm not looking for something from the Motor Pool."

She hopped back as he exited the limo and he looked down and saw her bruising ankle under the hem of her red skirt. "Are you hurt?"

Audrey smiled up at the heavy-set, powerful looking, and dark-haired man. "No, just twisted my leg hopping out of the car. Husband bought it without asking me. Uh, I'll just stay here if you don't mind, the hood's open." She pointed at the tan SUV and leaned on the limo roof.

"I only have a second, Ma'am, but I'll look."

"Thank you."

She kept smiling as he turned and walked away, her lips falling back to their usual configuration as she moved to the back of the limo and after a last look ducked down and retrieved the hefty file. On the tab at the top, just as she assumed, read simply but sadly "Bauer, Jack". With a last glance up at the bent back of the kindly driver, she opened the file and looked at the first page of notes sitting on the top. Her first unpleasant shock was that they were dated for today. Not only had Jack had his first visitor, it had been a woman he'd never met – the now near legendary Martha Logan, who had somehow bullied her way in where Audrey had been forbidden to go, to see Jack.

Audrey glanced at the driver fussing with her SUV again and back at the cascade of notes in Winters' flowing cursive, her teeth grinding as she scanned the log of Martha Logan's visit. She wiped the tears from her eyes and reached to turn the page with a shaking hand.

"Another few days, Mrs. Raines, and I might have shared a good deal of that with you."

The pages scattered on the asphalt under her feet.

Consciousness returned to Jack Bauer with small steps, first awareness of the dim light that was on on the dresser across the room, the weight of a thin blanket over the robe, catching on the terry fibers, the fact that his right hip ached just a bit. That brought with it the memory of Martha Logan, the former First Lady of the United States, fussing over him as he clutched a towel over his privates. No flashback of embarrassment came with it, however, she had been so efficient, so deft in her movement, that he'd had time to only think about how good she had been at the task in hand, even when she'd sent Chloe out of the room and for the first time in days he was alone with someone else. A flashback of regret did come then, he must have scared the hell out of her when she found him on the floor. He should have told her about the false attempts to drown him, even about the attempts he had made to help them finish the job. However, each lungful of cold saltwater he had tried to draw into himself and end the torture, they simply pounded back out of him until blood mixed with the water he was gagging back up. In the end it was easier to struggle, not for his life, but to avoid the aftermath of having tried to end it himself. Bauer shivered his way through the memory and reached behind him without thinking, to the spot where Chloe had been.

The other side of the small bed was empty and he allowed himself to fall onto his back. She was still in the room with him, asleep in the brown armchair next to the bed; her laptop was on the table beside it, a blue light demanding a recharge. Somehow he was more disappointed to find her still in the room asleep but not at least sitting next to him. Jack sat up silently, favoring his hip and reminded by his shin that it was unhappy with his fall as well. He moved them both into a more comfortable position and then turned so that he could see O'Brian.

Bauer suddenly realized why she had left him – out of respect for himself and for his relationship with Audrey. Chloe would do everything necessary to care for him, comfort him, feed him, talk him through the nightmares, even bathe him as he clung to her, but their friendship before had never included her being in his bed. It wouldn't have during this scenario except that it had kept him from nightmares that had caused him to wet himself. While it was true he would have woken up this morning still in her arms if this had been Audrey, it now touched him more that Chloe had left his bed, hadn't made more of their situation than what was needed after he was soundly asleep.

He hadn't been blinded or deafened during his imprisonment; he could tell she was affected by him when they were close, that his sudden need for her, so unlike what it had been in the past, was pulling at her past the bonds of friendship. He knew some of it was simply natural, inescapable sexual tension mixed with maternal instinct (he'd been to enough psychology courses for that) but then there was her blurted response as he lay naked and bleeding on the floor of the bathroom, her absent accusation that he never played fair. He looked away from her as she slept, suddenly guilty. He wasn't playing fair but there was no one else with whom he could have done this. Having Kim do the things Chloe had done was unthinkable; she was his daughter, the one he was supposed to protect.

His not wanting Audrey to have been here was more complex. True, they had been lovers, her touch was familiar but the memories of being with her would have added to his frustrations. He wasn't even sure he could function sexually yet but beyond all that, he could again still feel himself strangling her in the interrogation room, still feel the ghost of her betrayal of him until the last possible moment. Had her pride been so important when his friends, one of them a President, had been murdered? He'd forgiven her yet now he was left to wonder how much of his doubts were in fact his own and how much they stemmed from the conversation he'd overheard. It didn't matter which, they were there now and he hadn't had time to process them regardless. That Audrey had slept with Walt Cummings thinking he was dead was irrelevant, that she had taken him to the point of using force against her… Jack suddenly shook his head violently and forced himself to stop thinking.

There was no doubt that Chloe had been the right choice as far as his own needs were concerned; he just didn't want their lives to become more complicated because he did. Being able to mindlessly, unthinkingly, unquestioningly trust had enabled him to begin his recovery, had made life simple and safe, had reminded him that there were things in life that could be easy. He didn't want to return Chloe's time sacrifice by offering confusion and frustration. Limping, he walked into the bathroom and shut the door, looking away from the bathtub as he went.

Chloe was standing up when he left the bathroom, rubbing her backside though her gray sweats. She twitched a smile at him. "Hey."

"Hey yourself. Don't tell me you slept all right."

"Well, my butt's still asleep if that means anything," she snapped quickly, the lopsided smile flashing on her lips. "What about you?"

"Fine, quiet. Martha Logan is a handful. I didn't do anything but sit here and listen I was exhausted when she was gone."

Chloe straightened from making the bed. 'Yeah but you were better. I could tell. I guess it makes a difference when you hear all the psychobabble from somebody it actually helped, but…" Chloe's voice drifted away, an uncharacteristic silence overcoming her. Jack sat down on the bed as she finished making it, reaching up for her hands.

"But?"

Chloe looked around the room for a moment then suddenly gave him a direct and stubborn stare and gripped his hands as tightly as she dared. "I don't care if you tell Winters or not – I know you're afraid she might have some crazy therapy for you to put up with if you do – but you're gonna' have to tell me what they did to you, all of it, so that I don't screw up again. I didn't listen to you when I was running out of the bathroom. I should have known how upset you were but I flipped out when Martha Logan got here. I shouldn't have done that either; it wasn't like I'd never met her before."

Jack looked at the long-fingered hands crushing his own, her own strength probably unknown to her. Chloe suddenly dropped to one knee and forced him to meet her eyes. There was a new and strange emotion in them, a pain that pleaded that she not have the chance to hurt him again… and a promise that his darkest secrets were safe. It took only a moment before he closed his eyes and simply nodded, keeping the pain private for a precious few seconds more. He knew that he could tell Chloe and she would tell no one but if he could tell her and if it made things easier, he could eventually tell Winters and get the other help he needed.

Chloe grimaced at the top of Jack's head and then put her right hand on his cheek and forced his head up. "We'll get some food and then we'll talk. We'll just take it slow. I just can't do that again, Jack; maybe it's selfish to force you but I can't find you banged up in the floor anymore because of something I did or didn't do."

He met her eyes then, now in the familiar territory of being angry with himself. "That wasn't your fault. I didn't tell you about the ballast tank." He smiled suddenly, a small laugh escaping him. "The only thing you did wrong was making me feel so safe before that the thought didn't cross my mind all the other times."

Chloe scowled viciously at that, actually meaning it a little, but she wasn't about to tell him he wasn't playing fair again. Standing, she let go of his face to deliver a two-fingered tap to his nose. "Okay, no more feeling that safe around me. I am still doing the cooking, remember?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Come in."

Audrey didn't look up as the door to the liaison office opened but she caught a whiff of perfume and knew that the person entering was a woman. She didn't have to look up to know who it most likely was once that was established. Well, at least she was in her own office now, a bit more of her own territory. "I was wondering how long you would take. So, what will it be? A ruler over the knuckles? Indian burn? Kick in the ass? I care for Jack, I have for a while and I'm being kept from him at one of the worst points in his life by someone using a white coat for a crown."

Winters sat down without being invited to do so, listening at the sharp words from Audrey Raines with a calm born of over a dozen years of hearing the same. She filtered through the word choices; she'd never been compared to corrupt royalty before now. Apparently Raines had authority issues as well, probably having had to grow up with such a powerful father. Raines finally looked at her, about to say something more when Winters folded her hands in her lap and sat back further, giving Raines the look that proverbially left her feeling trapped in a jar. "I'm not here to punish you. That would be an ironic choice of actions, don't you think? I'm here because I wanted to tell you I'm not going to be reporting your little subterfuge against Martha's driver. I would guess you suffered enough getting a glimpse of what you did."

Audrey looked at the wall behind Winters' head, torn for a moment. "I suppose I should thank you." She didn't mention following Curtis to the hallway that led to the safehouse. Three strikes and she would be out, wasn't that the policy? "I am grateful but by the same token, knowing Jack is having episodes like that – whether I should or not, it makes this worse. After this many---."

"Was it entirely the incident you read about or the fact that he settled down immediately when Chloe O'Brian returned?"

"You're that sure he wouldn't have for me?"

"I've never said that. He might respond to you positively in some ways but not the ones that count right now. Tell me, why didn't Jack tell you what was going on when he faked his death and began a new life?"

Audrey's gaze flashed upwards, "To protect me, and to keep me from being used against him or this country."

"Yet he told Agent O'Brian?"

"He needed her to create his new identity and keep making sure that no one ever got a clue that he was still alive. He also had her keep tabs on his daughter. Chloe told me a few days after Palmer was killed that she'd been in touch with him since he'd vanished."

"So -- it would be reasonable to say that he didn't feel the same need to protect Agent O'Brian?"

Audrey stopped her next answer, recognizing the tone. "Am I your patient now?"

"Not exactly but I owe it to Mr. Bauer to understand all the factors that would support his recovery. Based on that - did you want to answer the question?"

"Fine," Audrey snapped and then grimaced at the familiar tone and verbiage. "No, I suppose he didn't feel inclined to protect her in the same way. She's not as public a figure as I can be. She doesn't have a relationship anyone would know about as far as he's concerned."

Winters unclasped her hands and raised them slightly in Raines' direction. "Okay, game over. The reason I wanted to point out to you about your exclusion, and wanted you to realize on your own, is that Jack will lie, will go to extremes, will deprive himself of your relationship – to protect you. He's done it in the past, he would do it again. He would not share with you what he has to share with someone to unlock what's been done to him so that I can get in there and undo the damage. I don't know what they did to him aside from a few things, what I could tell from a physical aspect but to what extent they got inside his head… that has to come from him. He has no history of shutting down with Chloe O'Brian, he does with me and he does with you. Your actions with Walt Cummings, bringing Jack to use force against you, his sacrifice of a supportive relationship to protect you… Ms. Raines, there are very few factors here in your favor from an objective point of view as far as getting to the truth here."

There were tears on Raines face as soon as the other woman finished speaking, whether they were from accepted truth or anger she couldn't tell. The DOD liaison picked up the pile of papers before her and straightened them, a distraction that calmed her and gave her a focus. People's lives still depended on her elsewhere. "All right, just one thing…"

"Yes?"

"Have you done this with a… a… co-worker before, for someone who was attached to someone else?"

"If you're asking will Mr. Bauer come out of this in love with Chloe O'Brian, his actions before now prove that he loves her very deeply already as a friend. He gave up a new life to save hers, risked the very discovery by the Chinese that occurred, but has seen her risk a great deal for him. He's also been through a great deal for you."

"But, of course, I haven't risked as much…"

"The point of your question being - will he want her as more than a friend? I don't have a crystal ball, Ms. Raines, but I have told her explicitly that she should in no way engage in sexual relations with him, not when he's in a radically dependent state. It would amount to not much more than rape no matter who the pursuer was."

Audrey looked away, studied the ceiling, the walls and then the desk before her. "Whatever else I might be unhappy about, I know Chloe would never do anything to hurt Jack or take advantage of him."

"I'll let you think about that, Ms. Raines, and I'll tell you what I can… when it's appropriate."

….

Chloe O'Brian was stalling, she knew it, as much as she wanted to know what the next few hours would reveal she didn't, but she had no choice. Chloe dried the last dish with slow drags and put it back up in the cupboard. The dishes at her own apartment would sit in the sink for three days. The idea of washing them after one meal wouldn't even occur to her. Jack didn't know she washed dishes twice a week but he'd figure out she was stalling, too, soon enough; she had to get this over for both of them.

Grinding her jaw and tossing down the blue dishtowel, she turned to look at Bauer across the breakfast island. She wanted to say something clever, something to make the next step easier to take but she knew there was nothing. Jack met her eyes for a moment then looked away; the color fading from his face, the dark red T-shirt making him look even more pale. She stepped out from the other side of the counter, putting herself in the path of his unfocused gaze. Bauer didn't acknowledge her, didn't respond to her presence but when she extended her hand, he immediately – if slowly – took it in his own. She registered the fact it was shaking and tightened her grip so it shook them both.

Chloe let him lead, let him find the place where he'd be the most comfortable. It was where she would have guessed, to the wide sofa in the living room. He'd opened up to her there before now. She sat down facing him, one leg drawn up on the seat, then let go of his hand and stood up. "I'll be back in second."

She returned as promised, carrying two glasses and a pitcher of cold tea. She had a feeling the next few hours were going to be draining on them both. Jack smiled briefly when she sat down again, knowing she was as unsure of herself as he was. He had to tell her what had happened but she had to get him through it. Bauer finally reached for her hand again after a long moment of nervous but not uncomfortable silence. She took it in two of her own and patted his arm. "We'll go slow."

Jack held her gaze without blinking, and the swallowed tightly, as if he knew he'd crossed some threshold from which he knew there was no going back. "I don't know how to start."

Chloe nodded, "You could tell me from when you were grabbed until Curtis got there or tell me the worst stuff first and get it over with." She turned his hand as she held it and began stroking the inside of his arm, her fingers traveling gently over the scars of needle marks. He needed more prompting, she realized and maybe some clue that she knew a little of what to expect. "The brief said you were really dehydrated when they got you here."

Jack looked up with a touch of surprise. "You saw it?"

"Yeah, it was part of the brief I got after Winters asked me to do this."

He took a sudden deep breath, as if a small burden had been taken from him. "Why don't you tell me what you know?"

Chloe grimaced to herself, for Jack her face remained calm, her voice quiet and steady. "Okay. You were dehydrated but they couldn't tell why, only that you'd been throwing up a lot and there were puncture wounds all over you. Your throat was raw, three ribs were cracked, and you'd been beaten just before we got to you. Your left shoulder was dislocated. You were still nothing but bruises the first time I even saw you and they'd had you off the critical list for a week then. Oh, and you'd lost a lot of blood."

Bauer nodded, watching her fingers stroke the inside of his arm as it rested on his leg, focusing his attention on the feel of it. "Asian culture, especially groups like the Yakuza or their Chinese version, it's all about keeping face, honor, not being disgraced. They told me I was valuable, that they needed me but not why. Whatever value I had they didn't want to acknowledge it or their need for it, so I think I was an embarrassment to them and they wanted the same thing for me." He looked up then, through his lashes, his head still lowered but his eyes focusing on her own as he took the next step. "Their way of keeping me under control, instead of restraints, was to keep me sick. The first day I was there, they did beat me; the second day they took me down to a medical lab, forced a tube down my throat, fed me through it, then injected me with a gastro-intestinal virus, stripped me, and threw me back in my cell. I threw up until there was nothing but blood."

Chloe kept her eyes locked on his, her jaw clenched to keep from reacting, remembering what he'd said days ago, that other people's responses were as hard to take as anything. No wonder he had been so receptive to the simple gesture of bathing him, so grateful that it had blocked out the secondary terror of having nearly been drowned repeatedly. He lowered his head suddenly but just as quickly she reached up and lifted his chin. "How long did they keep you like that?"

"The first week was every other day in and out of the medical lab. They would clean out the cell I was in with cold seawater. I would lay there shivering for the next hour on top of everything else but I was still glad to have them do it." His breaths became shorter and he turned away from her again. This time she let him, watching the tears slide down his face in profile. The only grace was that he now didn't care if she saw them. She thought again about the first few minutes she had had with him, still unconscious, wishing she could simply get him some privacy more than anything else. Her instinct had been right then; physical torture would have been in some ways easier to cope with than humiliation and control. Whoever had held him had known him too well. Chloe watched him a moment more and when she was sure she was in control of herself turned him back toward her.

"That's how you got so dehydrated. What about your shoulder?"

"Twisted it in the chain trying to drag myself out of the ballast tank." A bitter laugh escaped him. "I should have done it the first time. When they knew I couldn't pull myself up, couldn't struggle anymore, they stopped chaining me in there."

Chloe made a quick try at a smile and poured them two glasses of tea. She handed him one and sat back, resting a hand on his leg. "Take a break for a second. I know we're just talking but it's gotta' be hard to think back about this stuff."

"It's almost hard for you to hear it," he replied, half-draining the glass and setting it back carefully on the green coaster protecting the fake wood.

Chloe nodded and glanced out of the window at the nearing darkness. "You had to survive it. Most people wouldn't have."

"Well, there was surviving it and wanting to. I don't think you would have approved of my choice there." He kept his gaze square with O'Brian's and searched her face as she didn't react. "You're supposed to yell at me."

"Enough people have done that, Jack. I'm not gonna judge you. You had no way of knowing if whatever they were doing to you was what the rest of your life was gonna be until they did kill you, or if they were taking you to some Chinese prison."

He accepted her promise with a suddenly exhausted nod, resting the side of his head on the back of the sofa. "I had a lot of reasons to live, Kim, Audrey, you, revenge. All I could think lying there in my own filth was wondering, hoping all of you would have understood if I found a way to die."

She broke then, just a little, the tears burning their way out of her eyes before she could stop or hide them, not because he was wrong but because what he'd said was true. She moved closer to him, resting her knee over his own and not bothering to swipe at the tears, letting him see her take on what she could of his pain and accepting his honesty. Audrey and Kim would have disputed him; but she understood. "I would have known why, Jack. I would have helped Kim know, too."

Bauer lifted his head then, stared into the reddened blue eyes watching his face. The sheer honesty of her answer, even coming from Chloe, caught in his chest. He leaned forward and stroked her face with a trembling hand. "This is why I couldn't do this with anyone else. I don't have to be afraid of the truth with you, whatever it is."

Chloe fought the urge to turn her lips into the hand still stroking her face, hands she'd seen kill now seeming impossibly gentle. It was an easy battle for her; he was the most vulnerable she'd seen him yet, now wasn't the time to listen to the puddle of energy in her gut. "No, Jack, you don't." She took the hand stroking her face and placed the glass of tea in it, steadying his hand as he finished it. The cold untied the knot in his throat and he took an easier breath and calmed.

Chloe sat the glass back on the coaster and took his hand again, stroking the sensitive skin inside of his forearm. She wasn't good at gentle persuasion and certainly had no experience but Jack was different from everyone else. She didn't deal with him by way of confrontation. He was someone she respected, someone she didn't have to confront, who knew his job as well as she knew hers. Her voice dropped to little more than a whisper, her fingers kept trailing the scars from inside of his elbow to his wrist.

"It's okay, Jack, just keep remembering that. You can tell me anything. You don't have to be afraid. Let's finish this and you can rest. You'll have protected me from doing anything wrong. I'm the one who's afraid; I can't hurt you again, okay?"

Bauer nodded, his eyes unfocussed, as she unwittingly drew him to a safer place than she realized, to somewhere outside of who he had been when he was trapped on a freighter bound for death or worse. "They let me recover for a day, and then they locked me in the container and started pounding on it and I told you I ended up sick again. They gave me another day after those two, and then I woke up on a steel table, naked, chained to the corners, and the man who explained everything was there, and the woman who never said anything but she had the needles." He stopped, gathering himself again, his hand shaking now as she held it, still stroking his arm, still drawing him to focus on a gentle touch. Chloe fought down her reaction, her own urge to throw up; she wasn't important now. She had pushed him to this; she had to get him through it.

"How long would that last?"

"I don't know, not long. She knew what she was doing, how to make the pain last, how strong to run the current so there was no permanent damage. They didn't care about not hurting me; they just wanted to be sure I could feel everything next time. It's the waiting, you know? When you're being tortured you know you'll either be dead or at some point it'll be over. It's when they throw you back and you don't know when it'll start again that your mind starts to go. Another few days and I would have told them everything, even what I knew CTU couldn't change. I would have done anything to stop it when I knew they weren't going to kill me but when they knew they'd been found, when the carrier stopped them, they gave me one more good beating as long as they could."

Chloe dropped her head at last, breaking eye contact with him. She was strong but not bottomless. The tears dropped onto her thin gray sweat pants, onto the bosom of her white long-sleeved top. She was almost successful in biting back the sob but as she did she felt the impossible, Jack's arms around her as she cried, his own tears chilling the back of her neck. She held onto him and calmed as he rocked her and slowly relaxed, reordering her priorities, changing her own internal protocols but long minutes passed before she let go of his arm and straightened, sniffing, to look him in the eye. She gathered herself again, one more thing – they'd both survive it, just like her telling him that she would have defended his suicide to his child.

"Winters said there was one thing to find out, not meaning I'm going to tell her, but that it would be important to know so that you could deal with it, accept it, I don't know." She felt the blood rushing to her already flushed and hot face. "I wouldn't ask but she kept on about how it was impor-- … that women in the field sort of accept it as a risk but guys aren't… aren't pre---."

"I wasn't raped, Chloe. My God, how did you have courage to ask?" He took hold of her face again, staring at her with pure amazement that left no room for embarrassment. "There were times when she, when the woman who was there, used the needles… there. I suppose that qualifies as sexual assault but not…"

"Not that. Okay. I'm sorry. I was told I should find out when you were ready, even if only you deal with it. Winters told me before I got here that she knew I wouldn't tell her anything you didn't want... so… Crap."

Bauer nodded, smiling and was suddenly too tired to even keep up the smile but with the exhaustion came a sudden freedom, a demon slain, a burden halved. If he shared what had happened with no one else, he had shared it with Chloe and his secrets were as safe as if he'd held them himself. He wiped a hand over his eyes, and fell on his side against the back of the couch. She saw he was as spent as the first day they'd brought him here; where they touched she could feel him now shaking with exhaustion.

Chloe stood up long enough to move to the end of the sofa, dropping a pillow into her lap and catching Jack's eye with a small, inviting smile. He turned where he sat, backing into her arms, his head coming to rest against her breasts. He was asleep in seconds, an almost smile on his face. She watched him until she knew there would be no nightmares this night, none, of course, unless she counted her own.


	11. Chapter 11

Chloe woke to a buzzing sensation, the cell phone forgotten in the pocket of her sweats, unfelt by Jack through the thick brown pillow. She frowned and worked out how to get to it without disturbing him. It had been only a few hours since he'd backed into her arms and immediately fallen asleep. Moving smoothly but quickly, O'Brian brought up her right leg as a substitute for her arm and wiggled the phone out between her hip and the sofa. She opened the screen and read the short text message.

-C, Hi it's Kim-

Chloe wiggled the phone in her hand and cocked her thumb over the keypad. –hey r u at CTU-

-Yes on a secure line on one of the computers-

-ok-

-Will keep it short for your screen-

-ok-

-How is Dad-

Chloe started to thumb in "ok" but then stopped, grinning to herself, and turned the phone around, aiming the small camera at Jack as he slept, unaware of the proceedings. She hit the shutter button and heard the tiny click, the grin on her face widening as she looked at the picture the screen now offered her, Jack sleeping peacefully against her, his cheekbone tucked into her collar bone like interlocking puzzle pieces, the collar of his dark red shirt just visible, his hair slightly curled with sweat. She hit "Send" and waited, now giggling silently to herself.

There was no text message in return; this time her phone hummed in her hand and she thumbed it open, about to whisper "hello". Kim Bauer's voice cut her off, speaking barely above a whisper herself. "Chloe, you don't have to say anything. I just… I wanted thank you. I wanted to actually say it to you. I know you didn't have to do this. I know it wasn't something you'd imagined you'd ever do, and I know from what Dr. Winters said he was really weak. You had to do stuff he would've died before he let me do. Is he better?"

Chloe hoped the mike on the phone was sensitive enough to pick up her answer. "Yeah."

"Can you talk to him about talking to me? It doesn't have to be long. "

Chloe frowned slightly. So she wanted to play the worried daughter now… She had practically walked out of his life before he'd gone into hiding, which he'd done to protect her even more than himself. Then, after a few minutes of shock and gratitude when she found he was alive, she'd gone back to rejecting him again, to not seeing the big picture of how he was spending his life, how he was protecting them all. Another few seconds passed before Chloe's lips relaxed. "I'll see."

"Is he really sleeping that well? Does he still have nightmares?"

"Yes, and - yes."

"Can you stop them? I… I used to sing to him when I was little. Mom would bring me in if he woke me up, too. Sometimes it was the only way we both went back to sleep."

Chloe's scowl faded; she pictured Jack Bauer being sung to sleep by his little girl, her small hands stroking his face. She supposed Kim finally grew out of battling the monsters with him, that she had become a woman and understood the monsters were no longer just imaginary. "I'll try," Chloe whispered, her tone softening. She herself, after all, had chosen this life as an adult, had had a chance to understand it. Kim had been born into it with no say, had already lost one parent for good, and thought she'd lost another only to have him taken again and returned broken and distant.

"Okay, and Chloe, thanks again. Nobody else could have done this for him. Can you tell him I love him?"

"Mmm-hmph."

"Okay, you take care, too. Bye."

Chloe shut the phone slowly, to keep it from snapping, and wedged it into the corner of the couch. She unclenched her toes from their grip on the coffee table and traded her upraised leg for her arm beneath the pillow. Jack's only response was to burrow himself further into her as if he were trying to force her to stay. Chloe felt a tiny chill when he moved and realized he was drooling; she rolled her eyes but a smile pulled at her lips in the semi-darkness. It was only a little after nine; the lights of the city were stretched out around them, first across the valley and then above it in irregular lines along the hills to the north and west. Los Angeles looked quiet; she knew better. The world was going on without them; her sister was out there somewhere tossing a perp over the hood of a car; Hassan's people were still trying to run clean-up on their own operations, getting to everything they could to destroy it before CTU arrived in their various strongholds. Finding Hassan had stopped one major attack in the offing already. She hadn't done much but at least she'd helped some.

Chloe shifted her hips slightly so that a different part of her butt would become numb for a few hours. She'd learned; she cradled Jack's head against her as she moved and rested her cheek on the top of his head. She was still tired herself, her brain still trying to deal with how to process what Jack had told her of his incarceration and the torture. She wasn't thinking about it yet in detail because she couldn't. Instead her mind was focused on now, on hoping that forcing him to tell her had been the right thing to do. Logically, intellectually, she knew it was, in her heart it was a different matter. Before she realized what she was doing, she lifted her chin and delivered a slow, gentle kiss to the top of his head.

Kim scrolled back and highlighted the picture of her father in the small chat window with a small sigh, a sad smile on her lips. Long before old age might have forced it upon him, her father felt more like her child now, and for the time being she could do nothing to help him except rely on Chloe, at least it was someone she trusted, and, even more rarely, someone her father did.

Kim hit the "print screen" button on impulse and reached up to the shoot of the printer, only to find the printer was grinding more than it should. She clicked print again and waited. After a few seconds more the carriage began to slide smoothly back and forth. She shut the computer down and stood up, straightening her dark blue dress as the printer finished. She picked the photo up and stepped away, unaware of the second photo that emerged a few seconds later and fell to the floor.

Picture in hand, Kim used the other one to wave a "thank you" to Curtis as she headed for the concrete corridors that led outside. She stopped at the juncture that led to Medical and after a moment turned, winding her way through the steel and glass until she found the door with a hastily-made plastic insert that read "Dr. Gwenyth Winters Ph.D." She knocked quietly and was about to step away when it swung open and Winters, dressed in black sweats, opened the door.

"Dr. Winters, I didn't really think you'd be here." Kim paused before following her into the small but painfully tidy office.

"This place is contagious. No one ever seems to know when to go home, even I'm not immune."

"Guess saving the world makes people a little obsessive." Kim sat down and felt her smile broaden when she saw the grin on the other woman's face.

"I would guess you have… a definite understanding of that." A small laugh finally escaped her and she offered Kim a bottle of water from behind the desk.

Kim continued to smile as she reached for it. "I worked here myself for a little while. It's like the rest of the world stops existing even though you're tying to… save it. It's also kind of why I left."

"Why did start here?"

"Dad. He wanted me here, I think, because he had this idea in the back of his head that if I were inside CTU I'd be safe. I guess that got shot to hell."

Winters smile faded into a frown and she nodded. "I read about all that even before I was here, consulted on the debriefing plans that the staff here developed. They needed an outside voice themselves; someone has to watch the watchers occasionally." She took a sip of water herself and sat back. "What brings you here?"

"Curtis let me send a text message to Chloe O'Brian."

"He did?" A mix of emotions ran across the doctor's face for a moment and finally ended in a vague smile. "Tell me something, do any of your father's friends, his real friends, ever do what someone else besides themselves thinks is best for him?"

Kim took a sip of water herself. "I guess Curtis wasn't supposed to do that without telling you?"

"Well, I think in this case, he might not have known I wanted to be told. You are Mr. Bauer's daughter. What did Chloe say?"

Kim didn't answer immediately, just dug in the pocket of her dress and pulled out the photo, offering it to the doctor with a wry grin. "She's got a camera phone. She said he was better, that he was sleeping okay but still having nightmares sometimes. I asked her if she would talk to him about talking to me. I guess I probably shouldn't have now."

Winters looked at the photo for a long moment. Bauer did look much better from what little it could tell her, "It doesn't matter. It was on the agenda for sometime in the next few days. That'll put us a little ahead of schedule. I'll IM Chloe whenever she signs on tomorrow and tell her to go ahead if she hasn't." She handed the photo back to Kim. "How are you doing? It must have been hard knowing what was going on with your father and not knowing at the same time."

"I got him back. I didn't want to lose him again. It was worse than thinking he was dead but it was better because I saw what his friends were doing to find him. Does he know that Martha Logan pulled some strings and Secretary Heller sent an aircraft carrier for him?"

"I don't know but maybe we should wait to tell him that. I can't have him coming down with narcissism on top of everything else."

Kim smiled at that, "I don't think my dad has an ego about anything. Ego won't get the job done." Kim took another sip of the water and stood, not looking entirely amused despite the fact she was joking. "It's late. I need to get home. You probably should, too. Don't let this place make you of all people crazy."

"There are all kinds of 'crazy", Ms. Bauer. Some of them are actually good. You take care. I'll be in touch."

Reality had given way again, twisted by a mind withdrawn into itself, shielded by the altered state of sleep. Jack Bauer took a quick, anticipating breath, the surge of adrenalin rushing though him as she appeared, looming over him again, the one in control. He was helpless before her, utterly exposed. All he could do was anticipate her touch, the presence of her hands and the blur of sensations. He closed his eyes as her touch came, his breath catching, tears warm on his face as her hand slid down his thighs.

Chloe's hands moved against him again, the washcloth skimming firmly across his body. He had one arm looped around her waist as she leaned over him, needing to hold onto some part of her while both her hands were occupied. This time was different than the others. She cleaned him gently as before, her hands unseen beneath the milky waters, but this time she didn't stop at his knees. She let the cloth drift free of her hand; empty, her fingers stroked their way between his legs with a slowness that asked permission, that didn't demand or encourage.

Jack looked up at the gentle eyes above his own, his gaze locking on them and holding them for a moment before his legs opened and her hand continued, more slowly still. His eyes never left hers as her hand moved further, stopping a few inches before she would have reached the critical areas. Jack blinked when she stopped and then smiled; the hand not around her waist took hold her wrist beneath the clouded waters and moved her fingers to where they both wanted. Chloe waited for a few seconds, feeling him tense and hearing him gasp, and then her fingers began to move, stroking him lightly, her touch only a step above the gentle currents of the warm waters.

Jack was a mass of conflictions, simple joy at her touch mixed with the grief of what had been taken from him for so long, and the fear that it had been taken from him forever. Chloe saw through it, the Chloe in his dream. She leaned back, her hand continuing to work its magic, gripping him more strongly. "Relax, Jack, let it happen. It's me. You don't have to be afraid of anything. I'll help you. We'll make it right." Her voice suddenly deepened, her strokes became firmer and it was then that she realized she had something to stroke, that he was slowly becoming erect in her hand. Tears streaming down his face, he threw back his head and felt the first surge of an orgasm crash through his body. He would have collapsed down into the water as it ended had she not held him clear.

Jack gasped in his sleep, waking Chloe O'Brian instantly. She saw his eyes were open but he was seeing something else altogether, something holding him spellbound as the paralysis of dreams faded. He turned slightly, gripping her arm. She ran her thumb over his cheekbone and backed up to better look him in the eye. "Relax, Jack, it's just me. It's Chloe. Everything's fine. You're safe."

His voice was a confused, distant whisper. "Chloe?"

"Yeah, still here."

He smiled slightly, in a way that warned her something was still not right. She was still trying to figure out what when he arched up from the pillow and kissed her squarely.

Chloe gasped as his lips met hers and she felt his tongue brush through them and brush her own. It took a moment for her head to clear, to stop kissing him back but her hand was still on his face, her other hand had slid free of the pillow and was cradling his head. She eased him back with a small effort and sucked in a slow breath. "Jack, wake up!"

Bauer's grip on her suddenly tightened and he collapsed against her for a moment, feeling her rubbing the back of his head, hearing her muttering reassurances over his shoulder. Still dazed but fully conscious now, he straightened, wondering what had caused Chloe to wake him so abruptly. A moment later he remembered and his head dropped. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Jack. You were out of it. I could tell."

He wondered for a moment if he should tell her that he hadn't been, not entirely. He reached up to the arm of the sofa and straightened slightly, only to stop when he felt the sudden pressure in his groin, so long unfelt that he didn't immediately recognize it. He stopped moving, poised above Chloe and the pillow, blushing fiercely but overcome with a deeply personal relief. He dropped his head and felt the tears stinging his eyes. Confused, Chloe touched his face again but he fought her as she tried to lift his head. She waited him out for a moment but the frustration won.

"Jack, what is it? Did you…?" She bit her tongue. He would know what she was asking. "Again?"

To her surprise Bauer laughed, softly and shakily. "Not exactly."

"Not exac---?" O'Brian's face crumpled and then to her own surprise she reached down and rested her hand on his hip. Her gaze locked with his as her fingers traveled slowly across the front of his leg and stopped. He swallowed twice, his eyes boring into her, this woman he trusted with more than his life, then he took hold of her wrist, wordlessly guiding her hand to his groin. She touched him only firmly enough to know that he was fully erect, and to know that he had ejaculated once already. She withdrew her hand but he caught it in his own and did what he usually did, dropped his eyes and looked away but she could see that he was smiling, tears dropping from his eyes.

Chloe turned her hand to hold his as his head dropped onto her other arm. "You didn't know if… you… could… still?"

He swallowed against her arm and shook his head, his breath mildly erratic suddenly. "No, not after what went on on the ship."

Chloe nodded, suddenly realizing twice over that Winters had known what she was doing putting Jack in this situation before he was strong enough to physically care for himself in most ways. The enforced physical contact had made them comfortable with each other on every level, enough for him to share this moment with her -- with what was turning out to be very little embarrassment for them both. Jack was not dragging himself away in humiliation but laying on her arm and trying to deal with the increasing discomfort, all the while still glad to feel it. Chloe reached up and stroked his head for a moment, remembering the kiss she had given him as he slept, and tried not to think about the fact he'd been dreaming about her when … things… had happened.

"Come on, Jack, we should get you cleaned up, okay?"

He lay on his side for a moment more and then straightened, standing carefully. Chloe followed him up, not realizing how warm she had been until she was free of both the pillow and Jack. As she came to stand beside him, he reached down and this time, without really needing to, took her hand. "Chloe…"

She didn't look up for two reasons, one -- that he'd see the look on her face, two – that it was a smile. "It's okay, Jack. You don't need to say anything."

"Will you let me get away with "thank you"?"

"No, so don't thank me yet. I think the water's gonna' have to be a little cold."


	12. Chapter 12

She hadn't been inside this far before, just met at the door by a couple of non-descript guards and held in yet another concrete hallway to wait for Curtis Manning. He'd taken her from there to a small room with a secure phone line and not much else. Of course, he'd been nice enough to come back with a cup of coffee. She got the distinct feeling he was doing something he shouldn't but since it was what she wanted then she wasn't about to press him about it.

This part, well, it was another matter. If Mr. Spock had walked around the corner she wouldn't have been all that surprised. Everything was glass and steel and computers and displays and what she would have called "Modern Gothic" offices on the floors above, intimidating and shiny and apparently of no psychological effect on most of the people she knew or knew about who worked here. Of course, a houseful of older brothers had made her hard to impress, and did the same for her sister. Cassie Gibson stood in the doorway that led into the operational heart of CTU and waited, smiling when Curtis Manning approached her. He didn't do the same. His expression was what she expected, a bit of shock and some concern.

Curtis looked with a wide gaze at the tall, sandy-haired, green-eyed woman wearing a mint green sweater and gray slacks. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, you should see the other guy… well, guys," Gibson answered. Surely he'd seen worse but probably not on many women. Her left eye was blackened and a bruise that would need a week to fade lined her right jaw up to her temple. Her right hand was taped, two fingers likely broken. The bruises on her back were her own to know about. "I thought it was "blue day" in South Central. Guess one of my informants thought it would be funny if I had my laundry mixed up. Three of the charming souls down there cornered us, went after my partner, and then underestimated Master Kwan's best student. I am only a… a… woman." Her eyes made a familiar turn upward.

Curtis grinned for a moment and Gibson immediately knew it wasn't an expression he used much. "Three of them?"

"Okay, I didn't play fair. I had to shoot the first one, the second one thought I'd cave after he ruined the mascara I hadn't put on this morning and so he stopped paying attention. The third one got me on the jaw so I yanked his legs out from under him once I was on the street. He was still puking from the concussion when I walked off. Oh, well, one more Christmas card I won't have return" She glared at the security cameras as he led her to the heart of CTU. "How come the news wanks never get any footage of cops being attacked?"

"Be glad they didn't again. You might still have them claiming police brutality. What brings you here? Did you want to talk to Chloe again?"

"Well, I ended up with a few days off – I thought I'd try. It's administrative, not medical; they were more concerned about me shooting someone after they stabbed my partner than my temporary Halloween get-up." She flicked a hand at her face and then glanced around, spotting one empty seat in the technical chaos. "Is that where my sister parks?"

"Yeah."

"Ooooh, the seat of mystery. Half the family thinks she works writing those sick-humored nasty-mouthed greeting cards. Damn, I've got to see this." Before he could stop her, Cassie had waltzed over to Chloe's terminal and sat down. Not one bit of information was on the screens at least. Curtis rolled his eyes and trailed after her.

"I need to check with someone before I let you contact her. I've been pushing the envelope a little with that. Promise me, officer to officer, that you'll stay right here."

Cassie held up a taped hand. "Well, cross my heart, but none of that hope to die stuff. Okay?'

Manning couldn't help it, he laughed and after another look walked away. Cassie planted herself more firmly in the chair and fought the urge to get up and roam. The deepest secrets of the government were safe with her but she understood they had no reason to know that. Her eyes she kept studiously off the screens of those around her and gradually the people in her immediate vicinity lost interest in the new arrival. The only place she decided was safe to keep her eyes was on the floor. It was black and meticulously cleaned as befitted a roomful of computers, therefore the out of place object that she saw caught her eye quickly and immediately. She leaned over in the chair and picked up the face down photograph, a surprised snicker escaping her when she upended it. She had only been told, and that in general terms, what Jack Bauer looked like. Nevertheless, she had no doubt that the man who was sleeping in the photo, his head at rest on what appeared to be her sister's shoulder was the man she was seeing.

She was still smiling at it when a voice came from behind her, curious but also slightly challenging. "May I ask who you are?"

Cassie looked up and found a woman with medium-length blond hair and wide blue eyes behind her. "Cassie Gibson," she paused and realized the woman might challenge her if she offered just a name and somehow just being someone's relative probably wasn't going to do much good even if it were a department head. "I'm with the LAPD," Gibson added, in a tone that assumed that that explained everything. It seemed to, the challenge faded from other woman's eyes. Just to make sure she wasn't pressed further, Gibson decided to turn it around. "Who are you here? You must not be one of the field agents."

"I don't always work here", the other woman offered. " I'm CTU's liaison with the Department of Defense. My name is Audrey Raines. How did you know I wasn't a field agent?"

Cassie Gibson's lips withdrew against her teeth and she regarded the thin woman thoughtfully and felt her lips twisting to the side. It took her a moment to remember that the other woman had asked her a question. She wasn't going to like the answer but well, that wasn't her problem. "Well, you're kind of bony. You don't seem to be someone who would be out there."

Audrey Raines eyebrows, trimmed and slender, lifted toward her hairline. "Forgive me but right now you look you might benefit from another line of work."

Cassie pointed up at her collection of bruises with her taped fingers. "This? Oh, it took three of them."

Whatever Audrey was about to say in response was cut off by the appearance of Curtis Manning. He nodded quickly to Raines and extended a hand past her. "Doc thought this might be a good idea. We'll send a text message up and see if it's a good time."

Cassie stood up, brushing at her gray slacks. "She agreed? Well, let's go before she remembers me then. And if now's not the time maybe there's somebody I can help you interrogate while I'm waiting, huh?" She grinned brightly, only half kidding.

Curtis shook his head as Gibson stepped past Audrey Raines. "I don't think we want to risk looking like amateurs."

Cassie stopped as soon as she was clear of her sister's station and glanced back at the blond woman. "Audrey Raines, right?"

"Yeah." A quick smile flickered over her face.

"Well, I don't want it said I had anything in my hands when I left the Batcave. Here, found this on the floor, just want to have a name if they ask me who I gave it to." She reached out and handed, face-down, the photo she had retrieved from the black tile to the DOD liaison. Audrey looked after her strangely as Curtis led Gibson away. She was gesturing and asking questions that were bound to receive very few answers. Raines shook her head and looked away as they disappeared and gave her attention to the piece of paper in her hand, it was oddly thick, photo paper. The side facing her was blank so she slowly turned it over.

…

Chloe didn't meet them in apartment but instead inside the "airlock" that Curtis had arranged before the door. She stepped back as he keyed the steel door with its reinforced window open, her eyes widening as she caught sight of her sister's multi-hued face. "What happened to you?"

"I asked three perps in South Central to help me get a couple days leave."

Chloe rolled her eyes and snorted lightly, looking over at Curtis. "Now I guess we really should make her fill out that job application. She's be safer working for CTU."

Curtis smiled thinly and raised both hands. "I think I'm going to go somewhere safer myself."

Cassie turned to him and he assumed she was about to say something clever but her expression was deadly serious. "One thing… Once I knew where CTU was, I drove around the neighborhood and realized this building was abandoned. I did a title search and found six companies owning it in succession, but the last two had… uh, existence problems. I borrowed a sniper scope from a friend of mine and went up to the tenth floor of the building three blocks over and through an infrared you can see there's a lit section in here. About a twenty degree tint on the windows should end that problem, of course, you'd have to have the few clues I did to find it."

Curtis Manning had had a similar look on his face one time that Chloe remembered – when he'd been shot. "I'll have a crew take care of that as soon as it's feasible. In the meantime, think about that application, and I'm not kidding." Muttering to himself, he vanished.

Chloe was smiling lopsidedly when her sister turned from waving goodbye. "Great, here I was feeling perfectly safe…."

"Well, let me balance it out, I put an alert out for this area and upped the coverage by about twenty percent. Let me know when this is over so I can re-allocate."

For the first time in a long while, Chloe offered her sister a real smile. "I didn't know you had that kind of pull."

Cassie rocked on her heels for a moment then smiled for real herself. "I'm on my last days on the beat. I passed the detective's exam. I have the rank, we're just waiting for the paperwork and the shooting to be cleared. So, what's going on and why did you meet us out here?"

"Gee, do I get to congratulate you?"

"Do that at my first successful investigation. Right now I'm just worried about all the new paperwork I'll have to do. Hey, does CTU have an LAPD liaison?"

"No, are you making a suggestion?"

"Yeah, but you take it. Maybe we'll both get a promotion."

"No, thanks. I'm right where I want to be."

Cassie Gibson's demeanor took another turn back to where it had been. "Hmmph…. Was that career-minded or just Freudian? How's your little---?"

"Jack's not my little anything! You see, this is why I met you out here. I mean it, no crap like that when we go in there. This is weird enough for us okay but we're doing pretty good. You can't upset him or say something stupid to make this any more awkward."

Cassie raised her hands, complete with taped fingers. "I won't, I swear. I know this has got to be weird. He's probably still pretty shaky and you aren't exactly the Earth Mother type."

Chloe calmed down, knowing her sister meant it. "It's different with Jack. I'm used to him needing me and he's okay asking." She felt herself blush suddenly and wished like hell her sister would notch down the smile that was overtaking her face. "Reason number two I met you out here… you have a big mouth on the volume side and Jack's asleep. Let's just go in, have a cup of coffee, and you can tell me how you cheated on the detective's exam."

"You made coffee?"

"Yeah… in a real pot and everything. I even made it for Martha Logan." Well, she wasn't that honest; she didn't go into the fact that the First Lady had never gotten around to drinking any of it.

"Gee, the company you keep, it's a wonder you even speak to me now."

They had reached the kitchen and Cassie glanced about, finding it surprisingly orderly and well-stocked when she opened the refrigerator for actual cream. "A safehouse with maid service?"

Chloe gave her one of "those" looks and her sister backed off instantly. She had gotten the mouth, but Chloe had gotten the mouth and the eyes. They chatted for nearly an hour before Gibson's curiosity got the better of her. "Where's the bathroom?"

"Down the hall, go through the room on the right. The bed's made, try not to pass out."

"You better not show Mom how you play house if you're with a guy. She'd die."

"Let's talk some more about your face… she'd love that, too." She glared after her sister as she padded shoeless down the hallway and watched her as she stopped, predictably at the open door to Jack's room.

Cassie Gibson held her breath and looked at the man sleeping on his side in the small, mostly blue room. He was sleeping in almost a fetal position, one open hand jutting out toward the recliner next to the bed, his hair curled with sweat as he slept under what was probably an uncomfortable number of blankets given the warmth of the apartment. The hand not extended was holding them to his chest as if he were afraid they'd be ripped away. Gibson felt a stab of pity for him, wondering what he could have been through, wondering how any other human soul could have put him through it, what could have been worth it. Scowling, she moved back and took her first breath in a long few moments.

Chloe looked up as her sister returned. "He'll be up soon. Yesterday was pretty awful but we needed to get some stuff out of the way. He wore himself out getting some exercise, that way when he sleeps he's usually to tired to dream."

"You usually stay with him, in the chair?"

"Yeah."

"Does it help?"

"Most of the time, other times….," Chloe sighed and shrugged her pink sweater off her shoulders, revealing a sleeveless white silk top and her bare arms which were as covered in bruises as her sister's face. The patterns of them were clearly the imprints of someone's hands.

Gibson sighed and then shrugged. "I guess Mom wouldn't like the sight of either one of us right now, but at least he wasn't trying to kill you."

"Yeah, I can talk him down. I just hate to watch him go through it. I don't what's worse… what he imagines or what he remembers." She pulled the sweater back up just in time. Jack appeared out of the opening of the hallway, wearing the dark blue sweats he had arrived in except that now they no longer hung off him quite so much. At the change of expression on Chloe's face, Cassie turned and saw the surprise register on Jack's Bauer when he saw the bruises on her own.

"You must be Chloe's sister."

"Yeah, just call me Cassie, and you must be the infamous Jack Bauer. After some of just the declassified stuff I heard, I thought she was making you up."

Jack smiled and glanced at a slightly blushing CTU analyst. "Should I ask what happened to you?"

"Oh, she can tell you later… the important thing is… I won. So, I'm told that someone who looks exactly like my sister has been taking excellent care of you."

Chloe suddenly stepped out from behind the kitchen island, handing Jack a cup of black coffee. "My sister just got promoted to detective, just like I kept telling her to go for. She also came up with an idea that CTU should have a liaison with the LAPD. What do you think, Jack?"

Bauer took the coffee from her but put it down on the counter and with his other hand reached up to lay two fingers across her lips. "I think you shouldn't change the subject just because I have the chance to say something nice about you to someone."

Chloe scowled behind his fingers and reddened further as her sister erupted into giggles. "Well, Jack Bauer, if you can shut my sister up, you must be twice the man I've heard you are."

Jack's other hand suddenly cradled the back of Chloe's head, silencing her further. "I'd be dead without her and worse than dead without her help the past few weeks." He felt the heat of her sustained blush under his hands and after a moment, he released her. She stood glaring up at him for a minute and then ducked her head, stifling a smile.

They retreated to the living room and sat down. Jack grunted softly as his weight fell unevenly on his still deeply bruised right hip and Cassie immediately took him under the arm as he sat then took the chair herself. He accepted her help without a blink, felt the easy strength that her life demanded of her. He settled back with the coffee and Chloe coiled down next to him, her blush fading. "So, what do you think, could CTU use a direct liaison with the LAPD?"

Jack glanced between the two women and his gaze settled on the elder one. "We'd need at least three, one for every shift, someone inside who could coordinate and be aware of our protocols. There would have to be a secure telemetry between here and the district headquarters for each of the precincts and we'd need to run deeper background checks on anyone we would actually have on a more than need to know basis."

Chloe fell back against the sofa, watching Bauer with a guarded expression as their conversation progressed, chiming in only when they needed her input. Jack was invariably saying "we" and "our", talking as if CTU was not only his past but his future. She didn't know whether to be relieved he was thinking about moving forward or unhappy he was thinking of returning to a life of danger. Even if they resolved China's intentions, another incident like this would kill him, or as Jack would admit, leave him in a state where death would have been preferable.

Chloe watched her sister in some small measure, as well, and for the first time saw her engage in the business of being a cop. She knew the department inside and out, and even which of her less reliable contacts could be relied on if they were told terrorists were in their 'hood. It was almost eight hours later when she realized Jack was tiring again but at the same time she could see that there was another new spark of life in him, that he had been glad to focus on something besides his recovery and be of benefit again to CTU. Somewhere along the lines Cassie had gotten a pad from somewhere and started taking notes so that she could meet with Curtis and get things started if Bill Buchanan agreed.

Jack felt himself drifting off and then felt Chloe rescue the coffee cup from his leg. "Did you slip me decaff?"

"Yeah, and you didn't catch me so the caffeine wasn't working already," she snapped. "Cass', he's done playing CTU agent for today and you look like crap, too."

"I hope you're just not noticing. I worked hard to look like this. Jack, you really should join us for Thanksgiving, we're all on our worst behavior. Anyone who comes back gets to wear earplugs the second time."

"I may just take you up on that." Chloe kept her face expressionless when he answered and then stood. "I'm gonna' walk her out. You stay here, okay?"

Jack nodded, tired again but happily so. He exchanged "goodbyes" with Cassie and waved as Chloe walked her to the door. Cassie stopped when they were behind the first door to the outside world. "You really surprised me, Sis."

"Let's not go there again. I didn't come up with this idea but the longer we've been here I can see it working but I'd hate to see him back out there."

Cassie nodded thin, pulling her hair back and rebanding it. "Yeah, hey listen, did you send a picture of Jack to someone at CTU? He was sleeping in it."

"Yeah, to his daughter, I took it with my camera phone. She asked how he was so I thought it would be kinda' funny. How did you see it?"

"Well, I found it on the floor at your station. She must've been sitting there. Isn't that something you'd think she'd take with her?"

"Well, my printer gets jammed sometimes, sends things out twice. Did you keep it? All I'd need is for a picture of Jack asleep on some woman's shoulder to make the rounds while I'm gone, too."

Cassie shrugged. "No, I didn't want anyone to see me slipping out of there with something or trying to hide it. I gave it to some woman who said she didn't really work there."

Chloe's face cringed in sudden terror. "Was she blond?"

"….Uh…yes."

"Blue eyes?"

"Yes…"

"Said she worked for the DOD?"

"Yeah, sort of bony…, I told her so."

"Crap…. Just crap…!" Chloe bit her tongue to keep her voice down.

Cassie glanced at the door but then found she couldn't entirely bite back the smile. "Okay, you caught me… I gave the picture to Jack's bony girlfriend."

Cassie left before she was choked twice in two days, leaving her seething sister to stand in the airlock and gather herself before she returned to Jack, first taking the time finish off one of the beers that Curtis had snuck in against Winters orders and then taking two more and heading down to the sofa. Jack was still awake to her surprise and reached for her hand as she sat down. She'd had the opener for the first beer, it took the strength back in Jack's hands to open the two she'd brought over.

"Curtis?"

"Who else? Winters said not for you to drink, it might lower too many emotional barriers too fast or something."

"I don't think we have too many more left to bring down." He tapped his bottle against hers and downed half of it. "It felt good to put those plans in place. Your sister had a good idea. We can have someone to direct the coordination who knows both organizations and we can share Homeland tactical with them."

Chloe took a tentative sip at the beer and looked away from him. "Yeah… yeah."

"Something wrong with the beer?"

"Yeah, I already had one to work up my nerve. I have to tell you something." He said nothing and waited, knowing she was troubled and, as she had with him, let her work it out on her own time. "Well, you know my sister is nuts and she's pushy and she's a good cop but she's an O'Brian… when it comes to not being a cop, sometimes she does things she shouldn't."

"Chloe, you're not making any sense."

"Right, I know… I need to back up. I was texting with Kim and she asked how you were and it was when you were sleeping on me the other night, after you told me about the ship."

"You communicated with Kim?" His pale eyebrows went up slightly and he smiled.

"Yeah, but we need to skip that part right now." Chloe sighed. "She asked how you were and I took a picture of you with the phone… while you were asleep. I thought it would be cute, funny… and then I sent it to her. Only, she… she was on a computer and she printed it out, twice and didn't know it."

Jack had the grace to laugh slightly. "Chloe, they'll have figured this out anyway… so there's a picture of me sleeping on your shoulder at CTU. Bill Buchanan and Michelle were sleeping with each other, so were you and Spenser. The world is horrible enough that we won't be their focus for long. We brought down a President together, let them think what they want."

Chloe smiled at his words but she still looked uncomfortable. She finally sighed and took another, longer sip of beer. "I'm not worried about CTU in general… my sister… I guess she thought she was … Well, I don't know what she thought she was doing. She found the picture and she… she gave it to Audrey… on purpose."

The smile still on Jack's face froze for a moment and then he sobered in all senses of the word. "Oh, uh…, I guess that's a little different. I'm sure this can't be easy for her."

"Did you want to talk to her? Just tell her you were really having a tough night?"

Jack looked away, out at the skyline of Los Angeles. Night was falling again. Smoke from a hill fire snaked up into the sky. He knew Chloe was watching him, had pulled out her phone. She reached it toward him and he took it in numb fingers, staring at it for a long moment, his pale eyes growing calm and distant. He sat forward suddenly, finishing the beer and setting the empty bottle on the to coffee table… along with the phone. He sat back slowly and turned toward her, toward his constant. 

"I still need some time. I need the quiet that's in my head when we don't need to deal with things or when I dream. The only reason I've gotten this far, gotten better at all, is because I trust you. If she's going to mean anything, she has to trust you, too, and she has to trust me."

Chloe felt the tears well up in her eyes and let them fall. "I'm not here because I thought this would be anything else. I know you know that. If you didn't know that, this wouldn't work. You're my best friend, Jack. I just want you to be happy. If you want to call her it's okay."

"She's only going to tell me that everything's fine when it isn't. I don't want to deal with that. I want her to look me in the eye and I don't want to have to choke the truth out of her again." Jack's sigh was bitter as was his expression. Suddenly, he slid toward her, dropping his head to her shoulder as they watched the smoke turn orange and gold in the twilight. She gathered him against her and took his hand and he marveled again at her courage and honest and their trust before he fell asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

Gwen Winters' smile tightened marginally when she saw Audrey Raines approaching her office, then brought her attention back to the man on the phone. "No, I can have those papers faxed over in about an hour. When does the President want the program to start?

"That's good enough. I can certainly put some guidelines down and offer a few suggestions. Iraq is going to provide an influx of cases and we'll need more people brought into the program." She trimmed the smile in her voice back a bit when the knock came, covering the mouthpiece of her receiver. "Come in." She held a finger to her lips as Raines entered and pointed her into a chair. "Excellent - and tell the President that the plan will have to be flexible at first. I'll be rotating through CTU and London, then doing a lecture at the Sorbonne but the deadline seems reasonable.

"I would have to check my calendar then. I appreciate that. Right. Goodbye."

Audrey smiled politely, recognizing the tone of someone who had just turned down a function of some sort in the usual way of Washington. "Was it the people or the event?"

"Both, I don't like being paraded around by people who want to get elected by waving flags, spinning nonsense, and cutting my funding while they tell Larry King how dedicated they are to helping veterans."

"You have Martha Logan's ear now, and my father's… if you want it."

A curl of suspicion tickled the back of Gwen Winter's mind, wondering if she was about to be subtly offered a deal, a chance to pitch for project funding with the Secretary of Defense for a visit with Jack Bauer. Well, she had no proof of that yet… but she kept her ears open and anything but curiosity off her face. "What can I do for you, Miss Raines?"

"I would think that's obvious. I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about Jack. I know what you said you would consider it when it was appropriate but I thought maybe you hadn't had time." Raines glanced at the phone quickly. "You're obviously in demand."

"Trust me… CTU could be a career all in itself for someone in my field." She tried a quick smile and didn't receive one back. "All right, Miss Raines…"

"Please call me Audrey."

"Miss Raines… I will go this far - since you've seen my most recent impressions, permitted or not, I will share a few things with you based on them. Jack is now obviously responding in a non-hostile manner to others. He is complacent in their presence even under difficult circumstances if they are there to help him."

"You mean what happened in the bathroom with Martha Logan?"

"That incident told me several things. He is, of course, still having flashbacks and to some degree he has residual acceptance of a loss of control of his person. It was a survival response to deal with being manhandled, being weak, restrained, unclothed, kept without privacy. It's a common form of indirect torture used in Asia. We're a little more resistant to it in the West because we aren't quite as modest but it does still have its affects. There is good to be determined from what happened, however."

"And that?"

"That he accepted Martha Logan's help so easily, never having really met her before, means he should shortly be ready to have mine. He's getting his equilibrium back. He got to talk with someone who's been down that road where she was out of control of her life. Mrs. Logan might not have been physically tortured but the feeling of imprisonment is the same. She's now free, strong… my God, I've called her when it's gotten too much for me some days. I don't know who should be the one paying at our sessions at times."

Audrey smiled slightly. "The watched watching the watcher?"

"I suppose, yes, and I'll tell that to Jack when I start going up there. The woman who bustled him off that floor was every bit as broken at one time. And I know you don't want to hear this but his isolation with Agent O'Brian brought him to that point. She was a stranger as far as caring for him physically, reality forced its hand for them there but I did that for a purpose, Miss Raines… to reinforce the trust they have even more, to put in the back of Jack Bauer's mind the idea that he couldn't hide anything but also that an uncomfortable loss of privacy can happen in a safe, supportive, healing environment. That will be the essence of my interactions with him."

Audrey shrugged, her arms folding over her waist. "That all sounds very good from a clinical point of view, I suppose, but I still think it would have been easier for him if I'd been there instead of a stranger to him in a physical sense."

Winters sat back, her interlaced hands slowly playing before her. "On the contrary - only a stranger to him in a physical sense could produce that result. And with you he would feel additional conflicts, betrayal regarding your interrogation, residual guilt regarding the death of your husband, doubt about a relationship formed during his addiction, leaving you to think he was dead. There is no simplicity for him in your relationship, whatever positives might counter those factors I listed. In someone emotionally fragile the negatives will be the dominant factor until he is stable again."

Audrey felt the tears stinging at her eyes, drawn out both by anger and the truth. "You talk like Jack and I have never had a loving moment between us, like we didn't overcome any of that."

Winters expelled a quick breath, "I'm sure it sounds that way, but your history left me no choice in eliminating you from this. He needs simplicity, to wake up and know he only has to wrestle with one set of demons, the ones his experience on the "Shanghai" left him. Once he accepts them himself, he can face them with us. Remember, he has a habit of protecting you that he doesn't have with Agent O'Brian. He would likely never tell you what they did to him; he will tell her. Telling her will start the process of his lowering the barriers that at one time were protecting his mind but are a problem now."

A smile of apology came to Winter's eyes. She didn't enjoy this, far from it, pointing out the negative aspects of anyone's relationship with a patient was never easy, especially when it was to someone who was being actively excluded from aiding someone for whom they cared. "Not to belabor this any more but you also grew close to Mr. Bauer when he was behind a desk; Chloe knows him from when he was in the field; she knows the risks, has no illusions about what he might have faced."

Audrey's head lowered and she drew breath to defend her understanding but Winters cut her off. "There is one other thing that I do need to discuss just with you, so now is as good a time as any…, I suppose."

"Yet another reason why there's nothing I can do for Jack but wait and see if I have anything with him, while you virtually hold him prisoner with another woman?"

Gwen Winters straightened in her chair, her eyes suddenly cold and direct. "I am not holding Mr. Bauer prisoner, be very, very, very clear about that. I made a suggestion about the best way to pursue this and he agreed with the understanding that there was minimum time he would have to spend to make the attempt. He's exceeded that by a few days now. Mr. Bauer can communicate with and see whomever he likes, whomever he wants. I did leave orders to be informed about such things but they seem to be, as I expected, meaningless.

"Mr. Bauer can leave the safehouse whenever he likes, to come here for help, or just to leave, but he's no fool. If he wants the rest of his life to go on as normally as possible, he has to have help. As for you, his personal life isn't up to me, enabling him to confidently deal with whatever it might be is. Part of the reason I chose Chloe is because she did not have a sexual relationship with him. That would have put an added pressure on him, both in terms of memory and in expectations of himself. If it's any comfort, he'd want to get better too fast for you."

The tears that had formed in Raines' large eyes spilled over at last and she let them. It was hardly as if Winters hadn't seen tears before now. "You never even gave me the chance to make him understand that I wouldn't expect him to---,"

"This isn't about what you would expect Miss Raines. The only consideration I can make is what he would expect of himself and he has a history of radically ego-centric expectations of himself, all since the loss of his wife, in regard to saving others. Since he'd want to protect you and your relationship from his perceived weakness, he'd give grateful lip service to your reassurances but don't for a moment believe your lack of expectations would be a factor for him."

Audrey fumed silently for a moment, smarting with truth, clutching for one last straw. "And so Chloe is up there because he doesn't have anything to prove to her? You know, my God, she's been in his ear through some of the worst moments of his life. He gave up the life he cheated me out of sharing to save her. You think she won't have feelings that this situa---. She's not a saint, Doc--."

"I'm not saying she doesn't. It wouldn't be normal if she didn't but her pattern is that she will sublimate those feelings in his best interest. She's taken it upon herself to be fired, reprimanded, even incarcerated because she was doing what seemed best for him; she practically took my head off for instructing her not to have intercourse with him if he regained the capacity and seemed inclined."

Audrey glared across the desk at the platinum-haired doctor. "If you didn't know, taking someone's head off is her response to almost everything. As for rest, well, it must be nice to be so sure of everyone else." .

"It's my job. I'm usually very good at it and I'm not giving you a guarantee about the future but as for the present, you said it yourself, O'Brian would do nothing to consciously harm him. Now, I've said enough, maybe a little too much but I do need you to be aware of the choices I've made for Mr. Bauer so that they will color your interaction with him. I can assure you, implying that I was holding him prisoner or speaking ill of Chloe O'Brian will not go over well with him once he's back. Oh, and, I've been brought here as a consultant for CTU, not the DOD. I think my reasoning would be fairly clear even to a layperson so if you need to work your feelings about this through again, my normal rate is $400 an hour."

Winters became detached again, her voice losing its deliberately icy edge. "If it's appropriate I'll share what else I can after I visit with him. I think that will come in a few days."

Audrey had calmed herself quickly in the face of the doctor's stinging summation. A sense of dread was overcoming her; she was now fighting to hold onto her trust. "You'd go up there, not have Jack come back down?"

"Only at first, how these things usually work is that I start an interactive recovery in what has come to feel like a safe haven. If you were my patient would you tell me more in my office or in something that feels like your own living room?"

"But Chloe would be there?" Raines pressed again, her face creased with doubt and resentment. She'd come here ready to make demands, beg, whatever was needed, to find out what was going on with Bauer. The last thing she now needed to hear was that Jack would be bearing more of his soul to or in front of Chloe O'Brian.

Winters watched the play of thoughts in the other woman's mind, guessing most of them. "I'm not telling you anything you couldn't find in my general treatment profiles on the Internet. I'll guide the recovery questions but he'll start out giving the answers to Chloe, to the trustee, in an environment and with someone with whom he feels completely safe. After a few sessions, we'll start trying them down here and then Jack is going to have to make a decision, whether or not he still has the desire to deal with what this profession can do to someone, and that decision and the rest of his life will then be his alone."

Audrey Raines wiped the last of the tears to her face and stuffed her hands in her pockets as she stood, fingering the crunched up photo of Jack Bauer asleep on O'Brian's shoulder. Compared to what she'd been told, Chloe's simple act of holding him as he slept seemed utterly irrelevant.

…

At some point they'd fallen over in their sleep. Chloe awoke sweating, her scalp itching from the heat of Jack's body pressing upon hers. One of her legs was still on the floor, the other had twisted up onto the sofa as she'd fallen over under Jack's dead weight and was now curled up under him. At a later point she had turned onto her back and Jack onto his side. Under other circumstances she might have welcomed this, for now all she could think of was how she was going to get out of it without embarrassing them both, especially after what she'd told him Cassie had done.

Chloe's eyes flashed angrily, her current predicament with Jack forgotten as she wondered what the hell her sister had been doing. It might have been one thing for Cassie to mess with her about a photo of Jack asleep on her shoulder any other time, at the CTU holiday party, caught in the field after one of those missions she rarely went on, the time she'd caught him as he nodded off in his office but this was another matter. Cassie was playing games with his recovery, although she probably hadn't thought that Chloe would flat out tell him about the whole thing minutes later. Cassie didn't understand that; cop she might be but her concept of male-female love was like anything else, that it wasn't something to be taken seriously. She'd probably thought she might be ridding Bauer of someone she believed was competition for her sister, a paper-pushing weakling nuisance who would never understand life in the field. Well, even if she was a paper-pushing weakling nuisance, she was Jack's paper-pushing weakling nuisance and that was what mattered.

Chloe sighed and went back to the problem at hand and realized the best thing to do was let him wake up first and slip off of her, sit her up while he thought she was still asleep and …well, that was silly. They could deal with this, for God sake, she'd had to hold him upright while he'd urinated and rubbed his backside with a washcloth when she'd bathed him. Wearing his shorts he'd put her hand on his erection, shared with her one the most emotional parts of his physical recovery so far. She took a weighted down breath and prepared to move but just as quickly found herself unwilling to do so. Bauer had squirmed up to where his forehead was against her cheek on the sofa pillow, his arm was around her waist. She could feel the returning tone to his muscles though her sweater. He was heavier now but just as trim.

Chloe arched her head back and sighed as she looked at Bauer, then closed her eyes and held her breath, holding herself still so that she was better able to tune in to the pattern of his breathing. She had a little time and then she would wake him… in the meantime, she stroked the length of his back, no longer noticing the ridges of the scars.

…

Jack shivered as the water struck him again, freezing him but washing the caking vomit from his hair and body. The "doctor" wanted him again was all he understood, wanted him for his third trip down to the ship's clinic. He was caught under the arms after four more blasts of icy water, held up as they directed the last between his legs. It took three minutes for them to move him through the short corridors, his shins banging on the raised entryways. He fought as well as he could when they lifted him onto the table, cuffed his ankles to the side of it and folded his arms beneath it over his head. His stomach, already cramped was seized with new pain. They left him, shivering, with his own imagination, knowing he would torture himself far better than they might before the doctor arrived.

Outside of the dreamscape, Jack's breath became shallow, his hands tightening into the fabric of the pillow beneath his head and the cushion next to Chloe O'Brian.

It was an hour before anyone arrived, before the blindfold was stretched over his eyes and tied to either side of the table, keeping him sightless and holding him fast. Latex gloved hands slid a bolster under his neck, holding his neck off the table and his throat at the right angle for insertion of the tube. Jack did the last thing he could tried to clamp his jaw shut. Fingers crushed his nostrils together and he finally had to draw breath through his mouth, the feeding tube trailing after it. He writhed and gagged as it penetrated him, cold and smooth. Around the intrusion he cried out as the frigid mixture splattered into his stomach and a hand twisted into his scrotum as he bucked off the table.

Chloe came awake with a shock, panicking as she reached for Bauer, still disoriented from sleep herself. "Jack, Jack, this isn't real. Jack, it's me, wake up. Jack, this isn't real."

He opened his eyes then, gagging as he sat up, nauseated and gray, grabbing hold of her arms with such force that she eventually gasped and uttered a squeak of pain as new bruises formed over the old ones. Her hand pressed up against the tightened muscles of his chest. Jack Bauer came fully awake to a Chloe O'Brian with tears in her eyes, biting her lip to keep from crying out. She gasped as he released her, then sat paralyzed as he now gently cradled her arms. When she was sure the pain had faded from her eyes, she looked up at him. He was now gray and shaking. For a moment she was sure he was going to throw up again and steeled herself not to react. She glanced up at the kitchen and was scanning it for the waste can when Jack spoke.

"Take off your sweater."

"Jack, damn it, give yourself a minute. Was that a first week dream or a sec---?"

"Take off your sweater! Please."

Chloe hesitated. The only way she could stop this from happening would be to fight him and he was strong enough now to fight it off her, which would be even worse for him.

She waited the space of one more breath. To hell with it: she wasn't going to make him choke the truth out of her. They'd survive this, too.

Chloe reached up near the collar and took the sweater off in one quick move, baring her arms to him for the first time since they'd been here. The first few days hadn't been bad; he'd been too weak to do much damage, now her arms were banded in every color damaged blood vessels could turn. He stopped her as she shrugged and went to pull the sweater back up, lifting her arms to that he could see the bruising on the back of them. She sighed as his hands fell away from her and took his right arm in her own again, stroking it as she had when he told her of the Shanghai.

Jack turned before she could open her mouth. "They hurt me so I get to hurt you. Is that how you're going to tell me this works?"

Chloe watched him for a long moment, a dozen comforting answers coming to mind. All of them seemed alien now. This was Jack, a Jack who needed answer from the Chloe he knew best. She flashed him a glare. "Yeah, it is." Her voice was sharp, so sharp that he started away from her but she still had his wrist, her long fingers wrapped over the scars from the restraints. "That's the way this stupid job goes, and there aren't many people strong enough to do it. We are, and we're that way because we know right from wrong, not because we're religious crackheads or have some agenda that tells us it's great to be a murdering bastard. We have to be stronger than they are but since we're not psychos, sometimes we have to be strong for each other. So, I'm a little banged up, it's no different than any of the rest of this is, and it's a lot less than you walking away from Diane and Derek because I called you or looking me in the eye the first time I helped you into the tub."

Jack straightened but made no move to pull away. After a moment he took her hands in his own. "I'm just tired of being responsible for the people I … I care about getting hurt. Teri died forgiving me, Kim finally got tired of hearing it, I thought I'd managed to break the pattern with Diane. I wasn't going to have you be next when I realized the fantasy was over." His voice had become bitter but strong. He stood up and pulled her with him and he led her to the windows that overlooked the city. Dawn was casting long shadows between the peaks of the hills and toward the distant glimmer of the sea, gilding the windows of the few high rises around them. The highways were on their way to being crowded and somewhere someone was planning to destroy the normalcy of it all.

Chloe pressed her hand against the cool glass, her jaw dropping slightly when Jack wrapped his arms over her shoulders. "I can't hide from this much longer, Chlo'. I can't take you away from your life. I have to deal with mine, whatever's been left of it."

Chloe took a breath and without realizing it, relaxed against him. "You're not hiding, Jack. It probably took more guts to get through the past couple of days than it took for you do a lot of things."

Jack froze for a moment, and Chloe stiffened slightly again when his grip on her tightened. "I had this familiar little voice in my ear telling me how. That made it a lot easier."

Chloe relaxed again, unable to stop herself as he spoke, his voice gruff and honest next to her ear. This was too easy, too comfortable, and made all the harder the thing she wanted to say to him next. She didn't want him to think she was trying to prolong their isolation. She lifted her head, only realizing then she had dropped it back to his shoulder. "How about we have Kim come up tomorrow? She wants to, and then we'll call Doctor Winters a day or so after that. If you're not ready, I don't want you thinking you have to go back just because you saw my arms. Last night you said you needed some time yet, but I don't want you to think I'm trying to keep you here or some---."

"Chloe, I know better. You should, too, and I don't blame your sister for what she did. Sisters are supposed to do things like that, especially if they're a little crazy and especially if their last name is O'Brian."

Chloe giggled against him and they finished watching the sunrise together.


	14. Chapter 14

It was the kind of flashback that, for once, brought a smile to his face; it came as he took Chloe her third cup of coffee. She barely looked up from the rotating screens of overlapped data, her fingers moving nimbly to bring one screen up over the other and then combine the data. It wasn't often that he got to see things from her end.

The sunrise they had watched together had brightened into noon, leaving little doubt it would be another smoggy but otherwise perfect Southern California day. Chloe glanced up at the window with a sudden dread, her teeth clenching behind her lips as they twitched upward. Jack knew the look even though he was normally at the other end of it.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know yet. We've set up monitors on the canyon walls but there's a break in the system. My telemetry's on-line and the weather's not a factor but my scan pattern isn't completing."

Jack came to stand behind her as one camera after another reported a view of the narrow shelf of roadway. The fifth one sputtered a quick image and then died out repeatedly. "Where is that?"

"Deepest cut in Topanga Canyon, there's a concealed relay station up in the hills. The USGS used to use it to monitor seismic activity but they abandoned it two years ago."

"Why?"

"They got a new array of sensors that were a lot more sensitive and budgeted this one out. They didn't need the stations so close together."

Jack sat down on the sofa beside her and slightly behind the angled table. "What use is it to CTU?"

"None, but the data from Hassan said they'd been using it for something since it was abandoned. We're setting up inside this one and seeing what happens. It'll be either a meet or a drop; we'll have to do this before they realize Hassan's done more than go dark for couple of days." Chloe shifted her attention off the screens for a moment and bit back a frown. "I should turn this back over to Sophie. She's really good. It's not a big deal."

Jack looked away from her sincere expression, for him it was never anything but, and then at the shifting windows of data. Chloe was the best no matter who was backing her up. He had felt her absence during the business with Marwan; he'd not had as much confidence in the field because he knew there was no one at the other end who would go to the edge with him, who would ignore the people who were looking at concrete and glass while he faced the barrel of a gun. …and if they'd asked Chloe to take this particular job on when he wasn't her focus, there was a reason. He looked back at her just as she was about to initiate the transfer. 'Chloe, wait. What are you doing for them?"

"We're just going to set up a couple of transmitters."

Jack sat farther back on the sofa and smiled. "I think I can deal with that now. Where is it exactly?"

Chloe hit Alt+Tab and rotated the longitude and latitude screen to the front. "Eight miles north of here. The camera that's fouling up is the one at the intersection just to the west, in from the city. That'll be our first warning. They're reporting to a relay station on top of the hill that's feeding the signal to me. Once it's set up, I'll create a secure link and give it access to CTU. Right now I'm the only one who can see this. I can turn it over to Sophie to finish the tailoring. "

Jack gave her a thin smile. "It's all right, Chloe. Finish it. It's good to hear you working."

She watched him a moment more and then relented. "Okay, but once I initiate the protocol to get the satellites tied in, I can't task-transfer. It's a continuous initial configuration that has to be mainlined into the central serv---."

"Chloe…."

"Okay,... fine."

Jack hid a smile as the smirk faded from her face and her fingers began the dance. Knowing well she could multi-task the conversation, he leaned forward again, this time studying the camera feeds she was securing. "Have we searched this place yet?"

"Profile's on the second window."

Jack scanned the status profile for himself, suddenly recalling that the answers he normally had to request were in front of him. The bar to the right held a series of procedural icons that indicated if a location had previously been scouted, the operative who did it and when, if there had been any transmitters implanted there, and what intentions were held for it in the future. Chloe tweaked the camera again, resetting the signal gain, "Got it! Now I can set the scan range for the rest of them. This gives me a two hundred meter radius at that height, so the next locus will be within a hundred seventy meters."

"A thirty meter overlap?" Jack asked, his attention now on the two intersecting circles on the upper left hand screen.

"It's not as big as it sounds. The topography of the hillside means it has to cover more ground." Her eyes flicked momentarily to the feed of the now working camera as a large light colored car pulled into its range. The black and white image made it stand out against the blacktop of the road cut into the canyon's flank. It continued into the range of the next camera and disappeared into the one whose coverage Chloe was now fine-tuning. "Okay, I'll have them lined up in a second, then all we'll have to do is wait and see if this'll be worth anything. Hassan's papers referred to this as a "26 event point", we'll see what that means, I guess."

Jack's eyes sharpened with sudden realization. "How long have we had Hassan's case?"

"Since Kingman grabbed it early last week, second morning you were here, I think. Why?"

"I think whatever they're doing here happens every two weeks, fifty-two weeks in a year would mean 26 events."

Chloe took her eyes off the screen long enough to offer him a thin smile, then reached up to her ear. "Agent Griffin, can you hear me? It's Chloe O'Brian. I'm testing your comms."

A man Jack could barely hear answered in the ear across from him. "I've got you clear. I thought we'd lost you for a few days yet."

"No, I'm just remote. Are you at the station yet?"

"Ten minute hike further up. I'll be in touch." His breathing was labored slightly as he climbed the remote hillside with what was probably thirty pounds of equipment strapped to his back. The angle of the canyon wall alone meant he was likely using both hands and feet at times.

"Okay. I'm going dark but I'll be able to hear you." Chloe tabbed the mute control and sat back. "He's new, fresh out of college. They asked me to keep an eye on him before we came here, some Senator's nephew for the lead analyst to baby-sit." Chloe scowled and looked away and then suddenly realized what she'd said. Her face went scarlet in seconds. "Oh, crap. Jack, I didn't mean… I only meant he's a kid and they usually save me for the lead agents, the one's who… can I get out of this without making a bigger jerk of myself?"

"Are you sure that comm is off?" Jack's eyebrows lifted slightly and a smile lifted one side of his mouth. "I know you didn't mean anything, Chlo', not about me, so you'll only make a bigger jerk out of yourself if you keep thinking you need to apologize. Come on, you've got a man out there."

Chloe sighed and felt her face returning to its normal color and temperature. "Okay, but I'm still sorry. Gee, I said something thoughtless; I guess things are getting back to normal." She rolled her eyes and went back to the screens, remembering Agent Griffin after another second of cursing herself. "The stupid thing is this could be something. He better know what he's doing laying this stuff. This is the closest location to Los Angeles that was listed as an event point. Whoever wanted this kid out there is trying to get him a big score right away."

"Have we wired any of the other event points?"

Chloe wasn't looking at him; her eyes were again glued to the screen for more than operational reasons. First, of course, was the Senator's nephew, second was to keep hidden the smile that was suddenly pulling at the inside of her throat as Jack talked over her shoulder and studied the data, the Jack she remembered. Sighing to herself, she reached past the laptop for the coffee, now cold, that he'd brought her. If she cared it was it didn't show. She triggered the next series of commands to the overlap the next camera then arched her neck back to drain the cup. She nearly spat it onto the computer when Jack's voice sounded next to her ear, in a tone that sent shivers down her spine.

"Chloe, the car…".

O'Brian took a moment to stare at the long white car before she reached up to activate the comm. It was parked directly beneath the station that had been abandoned, not far from where the helicopter had dropped off Marcus Griffin. She hid the expression of frustration as she sat forward. Not now. Not now. Not now. Not with Jack. Not now. Damn it. Damn it. DO YOUR JOB. "Marcus?"

"Agent O'Brian? Yes, Ma'am."

Chloe scowled and tightened the focus of the camera as much as she could and began to pan it across the hillside. "You need to listen to me really carefully. This may just have changed. You've got company. Are you armed?"

To his credit he hesitated only long enough to take a breath. "Yes, anything more you can tell me?"

"They stopped within the last three minutes. If they're in the same shape as you it'll be twenty minutes for them to reach you. Hold your position, stay low. I'll be in touch." Chloe sat back and turned to face Jack. "I can't tag this over to Sophie now and he's at least a half-hour from where we could get back up to him. Let me take care of this; get away from it."

Jack's expression didn't change except to sharpen, "If you did it by air, they'd know we're here, they'll know we have Hassan. Chlo', I think I have a way to help him." Jack stared at the flowing green lines of data for a moment, the muscles of his jaw clenching and flexing. His eyes slowly moved from the screen up to the carefully neutral expression on Chloe O'Brian's face. She wasn't going to ask him; she couldn't, but the decision was suddenly no longer hers. Jack took a slow breath, his eyes locking with O'Brian's, unblinking and calm.

Chloe's eyes, just as steady, untouched by doubt, never left Jack Bauer's as he extended his hand. He could do this, the question was should he. "It's all right, Chloe. He'll need us both now." A last expression crossed her face, one of worry not doubt, however. Her hand shaking, she reached up and removed the comm from her ear and placed it in his palm.

Chloe looked at it for a second longer than she should have, her eyes traveling over his face for the least sign of strain but the hand into which she placed her unit was warm and steady; the blue eyes that held hers calm, self-assured, and for a moment filled gratitude that defied expression. She turned again to the computer, refining the satellite feed even more, trying to blink back the sting of tears as the man beside her slid the comm in his ear and adjusted it, then spoke, his voice no different than the one so long in her memory.

"Agent Griffin, this is Jack Bauer, CTU. You don't have much time so listen carefully."

…

"Mr. Buchanan!"

A raised voice was a rare thing during normal operations. It drew the director's attention in moments and he crossed over to where Sophie Barnabas was working at Chloe's station. "What is it?"

"I think you should hear this. I've been monitoring Chloe O'Brian's tag on Agent Griffin in case she needed to transfer down here. She got past the point where she could transfer to me but Griffin now has possible hostiles up there."

Curtis appeared at Buchanan's side. "We can't back him up, not without blowing our lead."

"Chloe is coordina---."

"No, Sir, she's not," Sophie interrupted. "Listen."

"…you need to get into that station. Find out if any of the old equipment is still in there."

"My God," Buchanan muttered, "It's Jack."

…

Chloe's voice was a tense whisper as she pointed at the screen, not wanting to interfere with Jack's instructions to Marcus. "There's three of them. One of them is moving more slowly, probably carrying something. No sign of a second vehicle." Jack could probably tell everything she was saying; her recitation was habit. She was out of her element; she could give Griffin all the data in the world but if he didn't have a strategy to use it, it meant nothing. Strategy was up to the operative in the field and she wasn't sure how equipped Marcus Griffin was to deal with three probably armed men who were coming to their "26 event point" at just the wrong time.

Jack scanned the tiny vista afforded him on the screen of Chloe's computer, tracking the three figures below the CTU agent who had only now reached the concrete mouth of the seismic monitoring station. "Marcus, are you with me?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Get in the station."

There was a moment's hesitation and the tiny figure that only Jack and Chloe could see for now stood poised outside the entry. "Sir, I'll be trapped. I might be able to make it over the hilltop and out of sight before they reach the ridge."

"You won't and they'll be monitoring for equipment, probably just short range, and you've got a whole packet of it that we were going to deploy. They'll find you by that if you don't get where it isn't shielded." Jack rubbed a hand over his face, hoping the younger man would simply listen. He was aware of Chloe watching him just as much as she was the screen.

"How do I shield it?" Griffin suddenly demanded, fear starting to edge his voice.

"Do you have the key?"

"Of course."

"Get inside; see if they have any of the old seismographs still in there."

Several seconds passed as Marcus used the key and opened the building recessed in the hillside. Jack turned up the gain on the wireless comm as the signal dimmed slightly. "Marcus?"

"I'm inside. I'm looking."

Chloe's hands changed the settings on the screen momentarily. "Jack, he's got about twelve minutes in there."

Bauer nodded and swallowed. "Marcus?"

"I found two of them, Sir."

"Not enough. See if you can find any more."

Chloe drew her lip into her teeth, breathing slowly, fighting to keep her mind on the mission, on Griffin. The only thing that enabled her to do so was that if they lost Griffin, the blow to Bauer would probably be devastating. "Jack, he needs to get out of there."

"Chloe, there's no cover for miles. He'll have to find somewhere to hide." A sudden smile drew at Jack's lips, just barely. "Trust me. I don't have time to explain."

Despite her misgivings, Chloe suddenly smiled herself on the same scale, and waited.

Jack turned back to the mike. "Agent Griffin?"

"I found four more."

"Good. Split your transmitters up, conceal them inside the seismographs, take out the batteries if you can. You've got about six minutes."

"Minutes?"

"Just keep moving. Split up the transmitters between as many seismographs as you find, then give yourself a few minutes to hide. Get rid of your comm. Take out the battery. Ditch anything electronic."

…

Gwen Winters drew a calming breath and stood, arms folded between Bill Buchanan and Curtis Manning, her ice blue eyes reflecting schooled neutrality. She ignored the inquiring stares directed at her and listened to the equally calm voice coming from the safehouse the next block over.

Buchanan let her have her space, needing to be as concerned with Griffin as he was with the sudden return of Jack Bauer to "duty". "Anyone have an idea what Jack is having him do?"

Sophie turned back, her dark hair framed by the light of computer behind her. "I think so; seismographs have an electromagnetic core component. It might provide enough interference that they won't be able to detect agent Griffin's equipment. All he'll need to do is keep out of sight and keep quiet… if he has time. If it all works he can set up the surveillance packet and then shield it from scans and get out."

Buchanan nodded and then took the moment of waiting to look at Winters, now not having to be keyed into Jack Bauer's eerily calm voice. "Doctor?"

Winters shifted back on her heels, breathing once and quickly, and said four words that came to her with difficulty. "I have no idea." She threw her hands up slightly and folded her arms. "This could set him back weeks or we're standing here listening to a breakthrough. We'll have to see how this plays out."

…

Chloe shifted in her seat, suddenly realizing her butt was completely numb. She was doing a fair job of staring at Jack Bauer without staring at Jack Bauer as they waited for Marcus to hide his equipment and himself. Jack was breathing slowly, tense only in his posture and the hand that held the comm unit to his head more tightly. On the laptop screen the three figures made the final approach to the concrete doorway.

"Marcus, if you still have your comm, they're here. Get rid of it and get moving."

Jack fell back against the sofa as the silence continued. There was nothing more he could do. It was up to Marcus Griffin now. Still resting on the back of the sofa, Jack's head lolled in the direction of Chloe O'Brian as a small hand found its way into his. "Jack, whatever happens…."

"Let it happen first. We'll deal with it." He turned away but his grip on her hand tightened as the silence continued. Chloe stared at the concrete entryway until her eyes felt like sandpaper. She looked over at Jack as he rested, eyes closed, against the sofa back.

"Jack, are you---?"

"Chlo', just wait with me."

Unable to do more for the moment, she did, moving no more than to bring her other hand over to join the one already holding his and relaxing slightly when his other hand covered her own. Ten minutes passed. Twenty seemed like an hour. Chloe's eyes never left the screen before her. It took every bit of control she'd ever possessed to hold her silence as the three blurred figures emerged from the old seismographic station, all moving equally now. The one that had previously seemed to be carrying something was no longer burdened with it. Going downhill they moved much more quickly as they returned to the car. They were out of sight in seconds and it was up to Bill Buchanan if they were pursued.

Two minutes more passed before Jack sat up and snatched his hands away from Chloe, pressing the comm against his ear and taking a shaky breath as the unit came to life.

"Mr. Bauer, they're gone."

…

Bill Buchanan grabbed the chair back before him and leaned upon it for support, just for a moment, just long enough, and then turned to look at Gwen Winters with a dull expression. On the way his eyes caught the rare smile brightening Curtis Manning's warm features.

"Doctor?"

Gwen Winters let a sigh escape her as the tension faded, and then brought her hands up to her head for a moment. "My initial assessment? What the hell do you people put in the water here?"

…

Jack Bauer signed off from Marcus Griffin with a voice that he fought to keep steady and sagged forward suddenly, his face buried in his hands. Chloe shut the computer down and pushed it away from her, at a loss for what to do for a moment, caught between guilt, relief, hope, and worry. A full minute passed before she sat forward herself, her hand coming to rest on his leg. "Jack?"

He didn't answer for a moment then his left hand lowered from his face and stretched open before her, closing over her smaller one tightly when she automatically laced her fingers through his own. He turned his head enough to catch her eye, to offer her a sliver of the rare smile she remembered not from the past few days, but so many months ago. "Yeah, Chloe, it's me."

Cassie Gibson was still fooling with where to fasten her "Visitor" badge when she walked toward the operations center of CTU, doing so one-handed while she held the clipboard in the other. Nowhere on her black and forest green suit seemed to offer a willing spot except her belt loop. She fastened it there, looking down as she walked, her head coming up just in time to avoid a clutch of three people standing in the concrete corridor. Curtis turned at her approach, smiling, and as he did she saw that the other two were Gwen Winters and Bill Buchanan. Before either of the men could open their mouths, Gwen Winters raised a hand.

"Miss Gibson, do you have a moment?"

Cassie's eyebrows both twitched above her half-faded bruises. "I'm here to meet with Mr. Buchanan, so perfect." Both men backed away and let her into the group as she finished closing on them. "I'm going to make a guess something happened with Jack Bauer?"

Buchanan folded her arms over his navy suit. "How did you know that?"

"He's the only thing the four of us have in common that Dr. Winters could look so cross about," came the answer. Cassie cocked her head slightly. "I do with people what my sister does with computers…sometimes."

Winters offered her an affirming smile. "Good, because your observations are exactly what I need. Jack just suddenly ran comms on an operative who your sister was tagging, someone inexperienced. My understanding from her back up was that she was in a technical situation where she couldn't transfer control back to CTU. It seems that Jack had a bit of technical insight about the location; he jumped in and took over to help this young man. I was wondering if you'd be willing to tell me what your impressions were when you went up there."

Gibson looked at the ground for a moment, a sober expression on her face for the first time that Curtis could recall. "He was a little edgy, moving a little slow. He wasn't hesitating but he was careful, like he was walking on wet ice but knew the best thing he could do was keep moving."

"Did you talk about work?"

"Not mine much. I didn't figure he needed to hear about my getting pounded on even if it turned out okay. I had a passing thought of telling him I'd been in a car wreck or something - considering what he's been through - but my sister is up there because she always tells him like it is and I didn't want a lie to be the first thing he ever heard from me. I wouldn't want somebody I just met picking what they think I should hear either. You'll be stunned to know I made a joke out of being the "Bashed Up Babes" cover girl; he didn't dwell on it that I could tell the rest of time I was there, no comments, no staring, and he could look me in the eye without a twitch."

Winters looked at the fading bruises more carefully, guessing how severe they must have been at the time and wincing to herself. "Sounds like he dealt with it pretty well."

"Don't worry; I had a new arsenal of smart remarks to blow it off if he hadn't. We just traded a little casual conversation but I figured he didn't want to harp on his problems either, not with a stranger; he'd obviously been through a lot, I could tell that. What we talked about was CTU and setting up a liaison with the LAPD so that we would have better protocols if we were called in on a hot situation. You guys work out of uniform; we don't want to knock holes in you by accident."

Winters glanced between Buchanan and Manning, asking for a few seconds more to think before she returned her cool gaze to Cassie Gibson. "How long did you talk?"

Cassie raised the clipboard and flicked fifteen pages of notes at the three of them, smiling when Curtis took it from her to scan. "Long enough for all that, about eight or so hours, then Chloe ran me out."

Winters took the notes in turn from Curtis and began to flip through them. "This is your writing?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, give me second." The other three remained silent as the Winters flipped through the notes, her lips alternately frowning and flattening. She lifted her head after nearly two minutes. "The level of detail here is pretty intense. It's clear. It's detailed. It looks like most of it focuses on protections for your officers if they're called in for containment."

"Jack took the lead on most of that, and the officers were his primary concern. You guys play in a league a little bit above ours. He wanted to avoid calling us in to live situations as much as possible. This wasn't official yet so he only said what he could from his perspective of being out of the loop here for a few months. Chloe filled in some of the rest but she had to play the need-to-know card, too."

Winters nodded slowly, "Okay, forgetting what you know, what you saw of his personal caution when you first met Jack, when you were going over this material, would anything about him have indicated to you he was emotionally strained, more than anyone in this field normally is?"

Gibson's reply was immediate, "No. He knew his job. He was focused. He told me he used to work with the LAPD, so he even knew a good bit of my job. He set up most of this and I fine-tuned, and don't worry, I was careful. I knew he'd been through some kind of hell so I let him set the pace. I didn't have to be too careful, mind you; my sister watches him like a mother hawk, and somehow she does it without looking like she is. I would say that that was, by far, the weirdest thing I encountered up there, my sister being subtle."

Curtis gave the second in one day of one of his rare smiles, nor was a smaller one absent from Bill Buchanan. Winters, however, remained deep in thought for a moment before handing Curtis back the clipboard. "You said Chloe ran you out after several hours later?"

"Yeah, and justifiably - for once - told me I looked like crap and then told Jack that he was done playing CTU agent for the day."

Winters smiled marginally at that, thinking for a moment of Audrey Raines. If she pressed again, she could reassure her that O'Brian's interaction with Bauer were still dominated by unconscious maternal drives. "How did he react to her doing that?"

"I wouldn't say he "reacted". He nodded and we said our goodbyes and I left." Cassie kept her face a well-schooled mask as she got to the part about her leaving; no point in letting on that she hadn't made possible the smoothest departure. Oh well, that would probably all sort itself out for the best. She kept the smile off of her face and suddenly shrugged. "Look, Doc', I've been around guys who've burnt out for a while before, not as bad as Jack might have been, I admit. Some of them hunt me down for a drink because they know they'll have a fun time in the non-horizontal sense, have a few laughs, blow off a wicked head of steam." Her expression became as serious as any of them had seen it suddenly and she swept the three of them in with a laser-sharp gaze that focused on Winters. "If you want a little more of my opinion and maybe haven't found the right question to ask, I can tell you that as far as being mentally on top of things, I've not encountered anyone sharper than Jack. He didn't leave anything to chance about protecting my officers and my guess is he would do that when his own condition was a factor for someone else. If he couldn't handle what was going on out there for that new agent, he wouldn't have put his nose in it."

Gwenyth Winters' face remained expressionless for a moment and then she sighed. "All right… I don't think I'm going to make an issue of this little "return to duty" right now. If today has had a normalizing effect on Jack, my running up there might actually undermine it. I think the last thing he may, in fact, need is me waving mental stethoscope. I will check with Chloe later but by holding back, I might also send an unconscious, reinforcing signal that his intervention was… a positive event. If he latently reacts beyond what she can handle, I'm sure Chloe will be in touch… probably… possibly. In the meantime," Winters paused and laughed quietly, "I guess I'll have to convince Bill here that Cassie shouldn't get my job instead of being the LAPD liaison."

…

"Telemetry's in… I've got this slaved over back to CTU." Chloe hit a last set of keys and sat back from the computer, then thought again and pushed its table as far away as she could with her foot. With a delicate hand she reached over and retrieved her comm unit from Jack's ear as he rested against the back of the sofa, eyes closed, the corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards. He didn't move as she took it but opened his eyes as it clattered onto the now distant table. "Careful with the equipment, Agent O'Brian."

Chloe fell back herself, her eyes closed. "You're not my boss right now. Maybe nobody at CTU is. I don't think the lead analyst has the right clearance to return you to active duty, or even sort-of active duty. They could hear us at CTU, you know? I couldn't turn the set up over but they could still monitor; my back-up had to be able to pick up most things at a moment's notice."

Jack shrugged. Chloe was sitting close enough to feel it. His fingers drifted down to tangle with the backs of her own. "I suppose Winters is playing the tape over and over, trying to figure out if I've put myself in a bigger mess."

Eyes still closed, Chloe rapped lightly on the back of his hand, "Yeah, and getting ready to let me have it since I let you get into it."

Their hands still back to back, Jack moved his forefinger to snare O'Brian's. "If she tries I think I can take her now."

Chloe was silent for a long moment, then couldn't hold the grunt back any longer. "I think they label it a really huge set back if you beat the crap out of your psychologist." Seconds later she was laughing even harder because through squinted eyes could see that Jack had joined her, that both of them were now sitting up. They turned toward each other after a few minutes and Chloe could see that the past hour had taken some toll, that he was a bit worse for wear, small things that she wouldn't have noticed before their enforced familiarity. She took Bauer's hand in one of hers and gently rubbed the back of it. "Forget whoever might come pouncing through the airlock, are you okay?"

Jack didn't answer her for several seconds, his eyes on the floor, then darting to the computer, then out of the long windows overlooking the city. He knew Chloe would wait for him, knew he was gathering the right words, just as he had when she'd shown him the bath. His head dropped for a moment but he raised his eyes enough to meet hers through his lashes. "I don't know how much you've ever flown, but if you go in the right direction, the right speed, the right altitude sometimes you get to see the sunrise twice in one day. I didn't know you could do that without a plane, but if you have the right co-pilot, I found out you can."

Chloe felt the heat swallow her alive as he kissed her hand and she released the breath she didn't know she'd been holding when he leaned over and rested his forehead against her own.

"


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

"Isn't it awfully early for you?"

Cassie Gibson rubbed her hand over her eyes and glared at Curtis Manning. "I had seven years on the night shift in South Central. Daylight's early for me."

"I think your family tree is showing." He picked up the carafe and reheated her coffee, wondering which cup it was, then sat down.

"That's what you get when you bark up it at this hour." She gave him a green and red glare and sighed at his amused expression. "But I opened my mouth and I have the connections, so first year detective that I am… I got appointed to head up this liaison business. I have no one to blame but myself but I may take it out on whoever's available until noon or so. So, what brings you here?"

"I'm waiting for Audrey to get out of a meeting. DOD is going to need a rundown on the intel coming out of … oh…. Sorry. You've been around here so much I forgot you don't have clearance yet."

"Uh… Audrey Raines?"

Curtis heard the catch in her voice, saw the sudden shift in her gaze. "Something wrong?"

"Let's just say I might not be her favorite person." Cassie looked up from the surface of the coffee and scanned the pale blue walls of the small cafeteria, then glanced out the windows.

Curtis nodded once and slowly. "You mean because of Jack being up there with your sister? No, that's not been easy for her. I know she's been kind of an… issue for Winters."

Gibson's mouth quirked. "Well, she's used to issues, right?" An uncomfortable silence began and went on for a moment before Curtis went back to his question. "You know, you might have to work with Audrey. If there's problem, we need to clear it up now. I don't want this business with Jack setting up friction from the outset."

Cassie took a long drag of the coffee and looked at her cell phone for the time. "How long before she gets here?"

"It'll run late, a half hour I guess." Curtis fixed her with a dark, solemn stare, not wanting to let her back out of telling him what the problem was although he had little doubt she would hold back. "So?"

"The day I came here and you took me up to see Chlo', I handed Audrey that paper I'd found on the floor. Remember?"

"Yeah, and,?"

"It was a picture Chlo' had sent from her phone to Jack's daughter, only Kim… is it Kim?" Curtis nodded. "Well, she printed it out, only she didn't know she'd printed two. It was a shot of Jack."

"Jack. And?"

"And I think he must've been through something or other, he was asleep in it." She paused for another drag of coffee and avoided Manning's gaze long enough for it to grow a bit edgy. She took the cue when he shrugged, "He was … uhm… asleep and my sister was sitting up, holding him."

Curtis groaned and shook his head slowly. "I'm going to make a wild guess that you knew who she was at the time?" Despite the accusation, Manning gave her a look that was surprisingly neutral and Cassie pulled her braid down to toy with it now that the coffee cup was empty again.

"If I answer 'yes', how would you react?"

Curtis swiped a quick hand over his mouth and looked away, "Well, that was a 'yes', so, I…," Manning sighed and finished his own coffee. "I know this has been hard for Audrey but there's not much getting around why she wouldn't have been able to do this for Jack. She's facing the truth of that, not just that your sister is up there with him. My two strongest memories of her and Jack were the mess she made about Cummings and her being dragged away from her ex when Jack had to let him die, hitting him, screaming at Jack that she hated him… and millions of lives at stake the whole time. He and I tried to save Paul Raines but it was too late. After that I've never understood what's between them… who knows? What made you give her the picture?"

Cassie blew out a long breath and looked at the ceiling. "I don't pretend to be an expert on my sister, Curtis, but about eight weeks ago she stopped being as bitchy when we talked. She and I spent a half-hour on the phone without arguing. I knew something was making her happier and since she wouldn't tell me what it was, I figured it was about work and I started to wonder if Bauer was alive and you all somehow knew. All she would tell me was that he was still MIA."

Curtis said nothing. He kept his personal life out of CTU for the most part. It never seemed to go well once it was being conducted behind a key-coded door. He'd been waiting for Jack and Audrey to implode ever since they'd had their first reunion. "Well, that's still the official line but you scared the hell out of Buchanan when you put the pieces together and it was after that I told him that you worked out the location of the safehouse."

Cassie grinned slightly. "I wouldn't worry about it. I was in a position to be the only person who could. I'm sure it still is a safe safehouse except for me since I told Sis what I did." Her eyes headed skyward for a moment. "Oh, meant to tell you," she wagged her cell phone at him, "they graded my circuitry so that I could get a line out of here. My first clearance level should be back in tomorrow around eleven." She looked at the phone for a moment, seeing that she had a warning of two text messages from Mom. A guilty smile crossed her face as she continued to stare at the small screen. "Only one thing wrong… battery's crapping out. I want to send a message to Chloe. Can I borrow your phone later, like at the end of the day?"

Curtis offered her a cold, knowing smile. "Let me guess: coming from my phone might mean she'll answer."

Cassie answered him with a sneer worthy of her sister. "You know what? There are too many people playing shrink around here."

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Chloe wiggled her hip to the side and retrieved the phone from her hip when it buzzed, opening it up to see the short message. "Call me. C." Chloe put down her book and carefully shrugged her shoulder out from Bauer's hand, then got up from the recliner and looked at her phone's face to check the time. He'd been out for at least an hour, probably long enough to be past the first cycle of R.E.M. sleep. She tiptoed out of the room and opened up the phone, pressing the speed dial for Curtis.

Silence followed the clicking and rustling that told her the phone was being answered. Chloe hissed out a sigh. "Curtis? What're you doing?"

"Uhm… wondering if you're still talking to your sister?"

The voice on the other end of the phone drove Chloe O'Brian's teeth together instantly. They partially dammed an angry hiss. "Hold on!" A grunt of frustration trailed after her as she stalked over to the door and coded her way out of the airlock, pulling the door shut and falling back against the concrete wall. It took her another breath before she raised the phone to her mouth. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah, maybe because you haven't MacGyvered the phone to kill me when you were getting out into the hall."

O'Brian straightened instantly, almost glancing through the other door's window before she took her sister's guess for granted. "Yeah, it is easier to yell out at you out here! Are you at CTU or did you get a gang of homeboys you hadn't busted to take down Curtis and steal his phone?"

There was a pause in the angry exchange that Chloe was about to break when her sister spoke. "Actually, I didn't actually need his phone to call you."

Chloe processed the reply in seconds and glared down at her mouthpiece. "You have phone clearance at CTU?"

"I should have my first security clearance… tomorrow."

Processing that took even less time. "You're going to be the CTU liaison with LAPD, a first year detective?"

"With connections…, right?

"Chloe?

"Chloe?

"Hello?

"Sis?

"Si-is?

"Monkey-butt?"

"UGH! Fine, I'm here. I told you I hate that. I always hated that."

"Ah, you are there."

Chloe fought slamming the phone shut and drew her temper in with her next breath, most of it. "You're at CTU?"

"Should I tell you or are you gonna' call one of your friends to kill me?"

"Get up here!"

O'Brian did slam the phone shut then and leaned back against the cold wall. She had fifteen minutes before her sister could possibly make it up here; she used them to check on Bauer and found him still soundly asleep, sweating lightly beneath still too many covers. She used the remaining time to go back out into the sealed foyer and get hold of her temper. She scowled when Cassie arrived alone and coded herself through the outer door. It opened onto the ridiculous sight of Cassie Gibson, in a brick red pantsuit down on her knees, head thrown back, throat exposed as if ready to be cut.

Chloe kept up the glare. "I know people who will do that."

"Yeah, but you get them whacked. You asked me up here; I guess you've got Bauer tucked in." Cassie hopped from her knees to her feet in one move.

Chloe folded her arms over her light blue sweatshirt, unimpressed and focused elsewhere. "Forget about Jack! This is about you. That little stunt with Audrey Raines, you better find a way to explain it. Does she know who you are? Did she then?"

"She will soon and I don't know." Cassie hissed in a breath and glanced through the window in the door to confirm her prior observations, what she could see of the safehouse was tidy and neat, no dishes sat on the counter, the pillows were squared on the couch. "Look, I'm sorry but I'll tell you something. I told Curtis Manning what I did and he didn't seem all that shaken up. I'm your loud, pushy sister. I do crazy things. I like fixing people. I became a cop so I could pound them on the head and fix them… and I… I hated thinking that what I'd seen the past few weeks might be over."

Chloe threw her hands in the air. "What are we…no, you… talking about?"

"The fact that you rejoined the human race when Jack wasn't missing anymore, and then I find you're the one they picked to put his head back together, and then I get up here and my sister, a.k.a. - Pigpen, is doing nothing less than nesting. The only way you would normally have clean dishes after every meal is to get a dog." She tried to smile but her sister was having none of it. Despite the fact that she was a few inches shorter and a few pounds lighter, Cassie backed up when her sister took an aggressive step forward, poking her in a spot sore from an old gunshot wound.

"You can make whatever you want out of this; you already are, and I don't care if you mess with me – I guess you've decided that's your job, too, but you are not… you are not… no way in hell… gonna' screw with Jack, especially not now. Enough people have done that. Even you and that crazy mouth of yours that everybody gets a kick out of should know better!"

Cassie Gibson felt the wall strike her heel and pulled up, her face flush with more feelings than she could sort, justification, embarrassment, and a few dozen others, and finally surrender. "I'm only gonna' say one more thing. You didn't even know Morris well enough to slip him decaff, or you didn't care. You married him because I dared you, and I did that because I thought you'd get rid of him. And no offense, I have no idea why he married you except you've got his only two requirements: feet!"

Chloe O'Brian felt the blood rush to her face, felt her breath coming into her lungs in an angry hiss, felt her hands begin to clench in anger and then found herself sitting in the concrete floor, laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face that she made no effort to stop. Her sister fell to the ground beside her, laughing just as hard at first. The laughter changed as one sister fell silent and the sounds from the younger became painful sobbing.

Cassie Gibson felt tears in her own eyes as her younger sister finally broke, latching onto her and crying herself into exhaustion. Chloe hung in her sister's arms for several minutes before pulling herself upright, her face still red and wet. Whatever she'd been feeling, however, she now felt better, stronger, ready to deal with everything again, as soon as she got some sleep.

Cassie drew a handkerchief out of her pocket. "Here, I got used to carrying one after the fifth kid I took home. I buy them by the dozen; keep it."

Chloe wiped the last of the tears from her face and blew her nose. "Can you go check on Jack?"

"Sure." Gibson got up in one easy move and coded her way through the door, returning a few minutes later. "Dead to the world. Again."

"Funny. You should book that act at funerals."

"Well, it'd be a one-member captive audience and the tips would be lousy." Cassie reached a hand down and pulled her sister to her feet with little effort. "Are you okay with this? I swear to God, there's no punch line."

Chloe nodded immediately, feeling her still hot and stinging face. "Yeah. He's my friend, Cass. That's more important… now. He saved my life and gave up his second chance. You know, I wouldn't have been so angry, except just before I took that picture, he told me what they did to him. He faced it because I told him I was scared of doing anything wrong and I wasn't thinking then and he couldn't, I just did the thing that made sense at the time; I just held him. It wasn't anything else.

You just have to understand something; I'm not important. Not now."

Cassie backed away, the iridescent humor gone as she toyed with her sister's limp hair. "No, Honey, right now you aren't… and I'm sorry. I didn't know. He just looked so peaceful, so at ease. I thought maybe something else had had a chance to happen… or…."

"No, and I wouldn't anyway, not with somebody in this condition, I don't care if it was Jack or anybody. You know, the only reason I talked to you was because he told me to forgive you. That's the kind of person he is, Cassie."

Gibson's jaw suddenly went slack, her gaze narrowed. "You told him what I did?"

"Yeah, right after you … escaped. I wanted to give him a chance to explain to Audrey."

Cassie's expression remained frozen. "And did he?"

Chloe hesitated, not sure what diabolical mess Cassie could make of the answer. Her hesitation was enough of an answer, however. "He didn't, did he?" Her smile returned ever so slightly. "Damn it, Chloe. How are you ever gonna' get a man if you keep telling them the truth?"

Chloe glared at her sister and let loose a frustrated sigh. "Just let it go, and no more games. Jack might have cut you some slack but I haven't yet."

"Well, save the claws for the bad guys. I'll apologize to Jack."

"Don't. I told him you were nuts and if you do it'll just make things weirder."

"Whatever you say. Just one thing, maybe just learn that even if it's not Jack, you can do a decent job of taking care of somebody else."

Chloe held her gaze for a second and then looked away. "Whatever. Get out of here, okay, and be careful. The 'hood you're used to is about to get a lot bigger and nastier. Welcome to saving the world." Chloe O'Brian hugged her sister one more time and went back into the safehouse as both doors sealed shut. She went to the kitchen and iced down her face, getting it back to its normal size and color. Tired as she was, she felt better. She hadn't realized the toll she was putting on herself, or hadn't cared. She changed her soggy sweatshirt for a long-sleeved green top and settled down in to the recliner. It now felt odd to sleep in a regular bed. Jack stirred as she turned toward him and she smiled carefully. "Hey."

"Hey yourself. You need a smaller book if holding that one up makes you so tired."

Crap… he'd noticed. Well, what did she expect? "No, it's not the book." Chloe sighed and glanced out the bedroom door. "Xena: Warrior Policewoman was here. "

Jack offered her a small, enlightened smile. "I guess you two took it outside."

"It wasn't what you're thinking; don't worry. She and I get along better if we're fighting. She's got the liaison thing going. Buchanan probably never got a word in. She gets her security clearance tomorrow."

"Then I guess the world gets to be a little safer." Jack threw back one of the blankets, then another and reached the hand that had been holding them toward her. Chloe took it automatically, her thumb stroking the scars on his wrist.

"Go back to sleep, Jack. It's only been a few hours. I'm fine, she's fine and Curtis is big enough to fit her with a muzzle." She gave him a lopsided smile. "Kim will be here tomorrow. Just focus on that." Jack nodded, slowly relaxing again. Chloe shut her eyes a few moments after he did and fell asleep, not seeing it when Jack stirred again a few minutes later, smiling to himself as he watched her sleep.

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Cassie Gibson pulled up short as she came around the last turn into CTU, her eyes flinching slightly when she met those of Audrey Raines. She stopped and sighed and waited for the other woman to speak. Audrey's eyes gradually moved to a spot a few inches left of her face.

"I understand you'll be joining us, Ms. Gibson."

Cassie kept her voice even. She'd talked down people with guns. This couldn't be worse, could it? "Not exactly, after the set-up, it'll be mostly for briefings. You saw to my clearance with the D.O.D.?"

"Yeah. That's when I learned who you were. We don't get many people that pass so easily but then, you have … connections." Audrey's voice had become bitter; her arms were folded tightly over the pale silk blouse.

Cassie withstood the gaze a moment more and then lowered her head. "Thirteen years as a good cop don't hurt either, right? Look, about the rest… I'm sorry. It's a little complicated."

"Actually, it's a lot complicated. We don't need people making it more so."

"I understand."

"All right and I accept your apology. We'll need to work together."

"I agree."

Audrey nodded and drew in a long breath. "I know this is odd under the circumstances, especially considering what's happened, but you're not under any sort of medical oath. Would it be too much of a leap for me to ask you how Jack is? I heard you're very perceptive about these things."

Cassie curbed her tongue, shuffling off the dozen or so replies for the one that was actually going to be the most difficult for Raines to hear. "It's not that I mind answering you, Ms. Raines. We have to be adults about this and there are times when I don't live up to that, I admit it. I'm taking the high road this time, though. It's probably best if I don't share my impressions with you. I will tell you that Bauer is thinking clearly and he's one of the best, most thorough people I've dealt with in this sort of work. He's gonna' be ready to move forward soon and with help he'll make the choices that are smart and right for him. As for anything else, I suggest you talk to Doctor Winters or wait and deal with Jack himself."

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The vibration from her cell phone came two hours earlier than she expected. Chloe put down the coffee pot, fished the phone out of the pocket of her navy slacks, and headed over to the door, coding it open for Curtis and Kim Bauer and stepping back to let them in the room.

Curtis glanced around the apartment quickly and then down at the analyst.

"You're early. Jack's not up yet," she offered, her voice just above a whisper. Kim nodded and a fractional smile touched Curtis' lips. "Hard to think of Jack asleep past seven a.m."

Chloe shrugged, "Believe me, two weeks ago I had to remember what color his eyes were. How's Sophie working out?"

"Doable but you're missed."

"It won't be much longer."

"I'm gonna' hold you to that. We need our best team again."

Chloe shrugged a dismissal and smiled weakly as Curtis said his goodbyes and left. Kim turned from watching him go. She was wearing a pink blouse and gray slacks; her hair was pulled back in a short, tight ponytail. Chloe gave her a real smile. "You look great."

"Thanks and I'm sorry I'm this early but I couldn't wait any more and I wanted to thank you again. I know this must've been strange. Barry said he'd never heard of anything like it."

"Well, Barry's not working with… people "people", right?"

"No, he does clinical work, sets up studies, test groups, evaluates findings."

"Did he look at any of what Winters has done? What kind of success rate she has?" Chloe pointed them toward the kitchen island and poured Kim a cup of coffee, placing it on the counter next to the cream and sweetener.

"No, he doesn't have clearance for the results of her stuff but he read a few things of hers that were published. Barry said he'd never heard of separating yourself from a patient like this."

Chloe shrugged and sat down herself. "Well, with Jack, I think the fewer strangers he had trying to mess with him at first the better, no matter who they were. It took him ten minutes to recognize me and then he thought I'd been captured, too. He almost killed a nurse. I guess you know about that."

Kim nodded then leaned over the counter. "Barry said he'd possibly be violent for a while yet, that he'd been forced to turn to violence and suffered from it so many times that unconsciously it might be hard to differentiate between--."

"Well, maybe Barry doesn't know everything," Chloe snapped, regretting it for a moment and then regaining her ire. If she heard the words "Barry said" one more time… She puffed out a breath as she faced Kim's hurt expression. "Look, I know he tried to help me when Edgar was killed, but Jack was the one who knew how to get to me. He's entitled to be a little confused but he understands how to treat the people he cares about. Winters told me she's had this work before so maybe… Barry should just wait and see. He's never been around the kind of people who have what it takes to do this job."

Kim knew at least that much was true. He had been appalled at the kinds of things that she had described from her past, had worked with her to help them not be such a factor. He had also shown her life where terror was not a constant companion, had urged her away from the darkness that surrounded her father; he hadn't made a remark against her coming today but she knew he'd disapproved, had wanted her to go after her father had been with Winters a few times. Kim frowned into her reflection in the coffee cup. " I know he hasn't, but it's been nice not to wake up in a house full of guns or wondering who might be hiding in the bushes when I go home."

Chloe shrugged, wanting to end the disagreement. "Your father should be awake soon. It might be nice if you were there when he did."

Kim nodded, feeling guilty suddenly. Chloe had been under no obligation to put her life on hold and bring her father out this nightmare. If he had been less physically dependent she might have been able to do it but even if that had been the case, she knew she had been one of those who had turned her back on him in the past, too. "Yeah, I think you're right. I guess the room is down that hallway?"

"Mm-hmph, but let me go with you. He can be a little out of it when he wakes up sometimes."

Kim stopped in the doorway when they reached her father's room, tears welling in her eyes that she didn't want him to see. Chloe waited and then walked past her once she had composed herself, sitting down on the edge of the bed and touching Bauer's folded arms. "Jack, it's me. I need you to get up." She looked at his closed eyes and saw they were still beneath the lids. "Kim, it's okay. He's not dreaming. You wake him up."

To her credit, Kim hesitated only a moment before taking Chloe's place and picking up her father's hand. She stroked his arm and, to Chloe's quiet amazement, began to sing. The tune was unfamiliar and she went on for a few minutes before Jack stirred. Chloe chided herself for intruding on the moment; Kim had obviously forgotten she was there or didn't care but Chloe found herself unable to leave until she saw Jack awaken, tears glinting at the corners of his eyes.

Bauer lay still for several seconds, staring up at his daughter as if she would burst into non-existence. She had stopped singing, had brought his hand up to her chest. She started to speak but he moved too quickly, curling up into her arms and holding onto them unthinkingly tight. Kim ignored the pain, glad for her father's strength, not realizing a few moments later she had begun to rock him. "It's okay, Dad. It's okay. I'm real. I'm right here." She kept repeating it until all of his mind believed it and he was ready to move back enough to look her in the eye. Kim kept taking deep breaths like she'd been told by Barry and by Winters, grounding herself for her father's sake. He met her eyes for a moment and then suddenly looked away, his own breathing becoming erratic.

"I'm sorry you went through… I'm sorry I couldn't stop them when they took me. I should've… I should've been… should've been…."

"Dad! Dad!" Kim had been around Barry enough to know the first stages of a panic attack. "Look at me. Look at me! Don't say anything. You want to say too much. There are too many things going around in your head. Just look at me, just look at me. It's over. We both made it. We can't go back and fix anything. Do you understand me? We can't go back."

Jack calmed almost immediately as her voice, now shrill, penetrated the blur of terror and regret and guilt that had seized him, so different from the voice that had sung him awake. He relaxed his grip on her at last and moved his hands up to hold her face. "We can't go back, we can't. I can't fix what happened to either of us, not this time and not when I got your moth--."

"Dad… stop it. You know, it's just as hard for me when you hurt yourself."

Jack stopped then, taking a little credit for this amazing young woman who was before him. He smiled thinly and looked down again, "We can't go back two ways. I can't undo the past three months and you're not a little girl anymore."

Kim blinked and finally let the tears go with a frightening, almost theatric sense of timing. "I just reminded you I'm your little girl, didn't I?" She shifted around to sit against the head of the bed and drew her father against her again, tucking his head under her chin. She let her own tears go again and, despite what she said, did feel herself going back, back to a time when she was deciding whether or not to walk off. She wouldn't leave now, not with him like this but she doubted, once he was better, if she would have the strength to go through anything like this again. He had let her think he was dead to spare her danger before and there was reason to forgive him for that and this time he'd been captured and tortured, freed, but then kept insensible for weeks. However, there were only so many times she could forgive him this dark life, so much strength she could offer before it would be gone. What she didn't want, however, was to have the guilt of damning his life completely if she left again now. About later, she could make him no promises and but she knew he was, at the moment, too afraid to ask.

An hour passed before Jack moved again, an hour where he drifted in and out of sleep and an exhausting reality of relief. Chloe had come to check on them once but otherwise stayed away. This part of things was none of her business. She had breakfast ready when they finally emerged, Jack looking rested but still worn, holding tightly to his daughter's hand. Chloe still tried to keep her distance but Jack would have none of it, pulling her down to sit with them as they talked. Kim kept a blank smile on her face and watched them carefully, unsurprised when they finished each other's sentences or by dozen other similar things. When darkness had finally fallen outside, it was a look shared with Kim behind her father's head that hinted it was time to leave. She knew Chloe was right when her father made no move to stand and walk her out, just held her for a moment as she bent over him and kissed the top of his head. Chloe, however, did walk with her, and they stopped within the "airlock" to face each other. Kim hugged the analyst again.

"Thank you."

"No problem. I think you did great with him. Just one thing."

"What?"

"I know you're probably thinking about whether or not you're gonna have anything to do with your Dad once he's better. Don't bother denying it. I know this bit wasn't any easier than thinking he was dead. So, if you really want to thank me, have a talk with my sister before you decide. She has a bad habit of knowing what people really want, even when they don't."

Kim stared at her for a moment, wondering if she were serious, that she should make such a huge decision with the help of total stranger. In the end, however, Kim nodded her agreement and walked away slowly as she left.

Jack's head was down when Chloe returned but he wasn't asleep. He was, as she suspected, wiping at the last few tears of the day. She stopped in front of him and offered her hand. He took it with the blind trust in which they shared everything, not seeing the floor as she led him back to his room, barely noticing as she stripped off his shirt and urged him back into bed. He turned toward her as she settled into the recliner, focusing again. "I don't want to lose her again."

Stretched out on her side, Chloe nodded. "I know, and you're gonna' think I'm the crazy one after what she did but I told Kim to have a talk with my sister. She's the only person I know who cuts through crap better than I do, better than that Barry idiot who's been..." Chloe suddenly stopped herself, scowling up at the ceiling in lieu of a mirror being available. "Just never mind. Get some sleep. I'll be right here. Gwen Winters is coming up tomorrow. You don't have to worry, Jack. She knows what she's doing. She'll keep this easy, okay?"

Bauer turn toward her slowly, taking her hand as she offered it. "I know. She already has."


	16. Chapter 16

Bauer glanced at the watch he had put on for the first time since coming to the safehouse and realized only four minutes had passed since his last check of the time. When he caught himself actually watching the second-and he stood up, walking over to the windows overlooking the city. His freshly-scrubbed hand left nothing more than a fine heat print of steam on the glass as he leaned against it near the frame. He wondered what Winters might say if she learned that Chloe still stayed with him in the bath, still ironically anchored him to the knowledge he was safe from the water.

A plane came into view from the west, departing out of LAX, its gear folding up and locking into place as it sailed past deceptively slow. His hand not on the window reflexively gripped an imaginary column and pulled it upward. He could fly again, just be pilot. There if you were going to die most times you had little choice in the matter, didn't linger, didn't live to think about the few hundred souls you were taking with you. If there was a struggle to survive, it was mercifully brief. No one ever hated you enough to drag you away no matter how irate they were; they usually took it out on customer service.

His slowly contracting hand suddenly met warm, familiar resistance.

"You look great, Jack."

Bauer turned, lowering his hand to brush it over the button down blue shirt and just the hip of his navy trousers. "Are you flattering me or yourself?" He asked slowly, smiling as she glared and blushed. "And before you blow me off with a look, so do you."

Chloe shrugged. It had taken her an entire half-hour to get dressed, and that fumbling through a closet of her own clothes. She had been nervous, was nervous now for him. She hadn't known why she was so nervous for herself then realized as much as Jack would be under the microscope so would she as far as he was concerned. She wanted to find something matronly and dull but nice and ended up sneering at herself in the mirror, staring at her dark gray slacks and light blue blouse. She and Jack had managed to separately dress in what looked like male and female tour guide uniforms. She'd thought about changing but Winters was supposed to be here any moment so she didn't want to leave him alone.

Judging by the grip on her hand, he was in the same frame of mind. His hand might have been shaking as well; that she couldn't really be sure of now. It seemed to have steadied. Chloe took a step toward the sofa and he moved with her, not thinking, glad to follow for a moment but stopping when he got to the straight-back chair and sitting in it for the first time. She realized he wanted to be able to see the door, as much as she wanted to ease the tightness out of his drawn shoulders, have him lift his eyes off the damn carpet. She growled to herself and looked at his watch where it covered a few deep scars. This was worse than the first night she'd spent with him here. The tension was now no longer about helping each other survive a strange and uncomfortable situation (they did that all the time), the question was now if Jack had what he needed from her to give him a start on the rest of his life. She was reaching to cover his hand with her own when the code being entered on the other side of the door sounded and both of them, smiling sheepishly only for each other, jumped.

Chloe was about to go to door when Bauer stood with her, tugging down his sleeves and resting his hands on her shoulders for a moment. "I don't know what she's going to say, but you've more than done your part. You didn't have to do any---."

"Shut up, Jack, okay?" Her head cocked behind the smile, she folded his arms back, taking his hands from her shoulders and they walked over to the inner door to key it open.

Jack's first good omen came not from she slender blond doctor, but from the wide-eyed smile on Curtis Manning's face. It took the other man a long moment to speak and he swallowed twice before he could. "You don't know how good it is to see you this time."

Jack's gaze dropped to the floor but only for a moment. "I have an idea but what you can't see… is where I go next."

Gwenyth Winters, wearing an unadorned, simply cut teal dress, took a deep, silent and relieved breath. Her eyes went from O'Brian to Bauer and a crease of a smile touched her eyes. "If you've made that step, Mr. Bauer, it is time I was up here."

"And it's time I got back," Curtis added, "Do whatever it takes, Jack. Whole department's here for you." He clapped the shorter man on the shoulder and backed out of the room, resealing it as he did. Winters turned to watch him go and then turned back. Chloe noticed only then the two-inch thick bundle of manila folders in her arms. "Do you want some coffee, something cold?"

"Yeah, that's great, just some water for us all."

Chloe nodded, fighting her own hesitation as she backed toward the kitchen and then turned. Winters watched her while seeming to stare at the floor, knowing she had been reluctant to leave Bauer's proximity, that both of them were equally nervous. Better to get moving then. "Mr. Manning was right to say what he did, Mr. Bauer. You've made excellent progress physically. I normally chide patients when they've put on fifteen or twenty pounds but in your case it's a bit different."

Jack only smiled and stole a quick glance at O'Brian as she lowered a tray of three empty glasses and a pitcher of ice water to the dull wood finish of the coffee table. "Let's go sit down, Doctor."

She nodded and followed him over, moving past him at the last minute and taking the chair, ensuring that Jack sat down next to O'Brian. She wanted Jack to have the moral support of her closeness, increasing the chances that he wouldn't feel the need to guard himself as much. Secondly, she wanted to watch the level of their interaction. Winters put the files down on the table and Jack's eyes followed them, narrowing when he saw not his name on the tabs but the names of a select few of his co-workers, Aaron Pierce, and Wayne Palmer. He wanted to ask but waited, flicking a smile at Chloe and she finished pouring water, wondering why the hell

she wasn't sitting closer.

Winters picked up the dripping glass closest to her and realized the safehouse was a bit warm for most people. She filed that away as an environmental factor of Bauer's state of mind and then leaned back in the chair. "Let me put you a little more at ease, Mr. Bauer. I know you've probably been wondering what this was going to be, although I know you've been debriefed by the doctor here before after the death of your wife."

Jack met her eyes and nodded carefully. "Is it all right for you to just call me 'Jack'?"

"It's fine, and I'm just Gwen. Of course, you called me some other things over the past few months but I'm betting you don't remember those." She smiled gently and sat forward again to catch his eye as he looked away. "It's all right, Jack. You're not the first. I'm guessing you'll be far from the last, and it makes just hearing you say 'Gwen' a whole lot nicer."

Bauer looked back at her then, managing a smile. "Okay,… Gwen, where do we start?"

"Where it usually starts, with how much you know. Do you remember me at all before Chloe brought you around and I asked you both later if you'd want to try this?"

Jack thought back, his mind hitting a blank wall when it tried to go back past realizing that Chloe was with him and realizing he was safe and alive. He glanced over at her but she shook her head and directed his gaze back to the doctor. "I'm sorry. I don't. Chloe's told me how hard you worked to get me past what they did to me, physically. Until that day, I didn't think I'd ever be out of pain until I was dead."

"Of course you didn't. That's half of how torture works when it does work. In your case it didn't if we can go by the debriefs of the people who took you."

Jack's eyes suddenly glittered in the mid-morning light, "I didn't even shoot the man they took me for killing. It was fire from one of their own people; they must have known that."

Winters straightened a little, reasserting herself. "I know that, Jack, and we'll deal with that; we'll even put that anger to good use, but right now, the point of this part of your recovery, isn't you. It's me."

Jack sat back and looked at Chloe as she shifted her weight, her brows twisting with curiosity. Why the hell was she so far away? "Okay, … Gwen." He smiled a bit of confusion and waited for the doctor to take another drink.

Winters put down the glass and glanced between the two of them, noticing that both of them had somehow moved an inch closer each without having seemed to have moved. "I can tell you my name, where I went to school, that my best friend is Martha Logan – who I understand was snuck in here against my express orders, but just as I hoped," she offered the man and woman a wry grin, "and I can tell you that I've had successes with people who seemed to be a lot worse, believe it or not, Jack, and some who were a little better. I don't have a chance to deal with the easy ones any longer, so if it helps you to know I've seen worse and helped them turn the corner, I honestly can say it's true."

Jack took the news with a neutral expression. He'd want to see proof of that. More importantly, he'd want to feel it, years from now remember it as true. He glanced over at O'Brian and found what he hoped, an equally bland expression, one that wanted the proof of her claim to be found, eventually, in Bauer himself. Winters watched the wordless demand of "prove it" pass between them. "Of course, I could tell you all that, but that doesn't tell you who I am and why I chose to be here. I don't mean because of Martha Logan calling me, I mean in this job in general.'

Chloe nodded and relaxed a little. "Okay, so it won't be like spilling your guts to someone just over a piece of paper on the wall." She smiled for a moment at Jack tried to pierce the veil of his sudden calm. "That's better, right, Jack?"

Bauer stirred then, looking up at her when he lifted his head and then at the doctor. "That's fine. I… I… I'm sorry, I just lost focus."

Winters took a slow breath. "Or… Jack, if you prefer I didn't tell you that's fine. I can be that paper on the wall or I can be someone you know a little better than that; we start where you and I are both comfortable." She sat back and saw what she expected, his gaze go from her to O'Brian.

The analyst met his eyes squarely and she gave him a brief nod after a long few seconds. "Doctor Winters showed up almost as soon as we got you back. She made sure one of us was always with you. If none of us were on duty and could get there fast, we took turns staying so that there would always be someone you knew if you came out of it. The drugs didn't work all the time."

Jack suddenly looked between the two women, his eyes stinging. "I didn't know… No one told me that. Wh-who?"

Chloe shrugged. "Me, Curtis, Kim, Audrey, Bill, Wayne Palmer a couple of times, Aaron Pierce, Martha – you didn't know her but you knew what she did to help you set up Pres—set up Logan, a couple of your drinking buddies from the firing range, and even Karen Hughes once or twice. You were never alone, Jack."

His jaw hanging, he stared at O'Brian until Winters cleared her throat, as soon as she thought the –for once – pleasant shock had had time to run its course. "The point is, Jack, anything I've ever done for or to you has been in the presence of those rare few you trust. I'm not assuming your trust in return - that has to be earned, but this should go easier if you know my reasons for being here."

Bauer took a breath and nodded, his gaze clear again as he sat up, his hands unclenching and falling to the sofa seat. Winters kept the smile to herself as she saw the unconscious opening of his posture. She watched carefully as Bauer's right hand eased over to rest against the back of O'Brian's. His forefinger reached back to snare her left one for a moment and he relaxed even more in the brief time that they were entangled. For her part, O'Brian watched him out of the corner of one eye and smiled with the opposite corner of her mouth out of his sight. Jack wiped the hand not against Chloe's over his eyes, "So, I guess, this is point where you start sharing instead?"

Gwen smiled brightly and settled back. "It's a pretty short story actually. Once I was in school and had a career, the motivation part is pretty routine." She stopped and both agents facing her realized from her own change in posture that what she was about to tell them did not come easily for her, though Jack was suspicious enough that he wondered how much of her hesitation was an act to gain his confidence. Nevertheless, he gave her his attention when she began to speak.

"I can tell you all this because I wasn't practicing nor had I even graduated school at the time, and my brother also gave me permission to tell it if I could help someone else. His name is Mike and he was in covert ops, investigating the claims against Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War. You've heard the stories, people killed in grotesque ways just for being under suspicion of conspiracy, saying his name wrong, idiotic things. Mike was supposed to be there for a year, having to dye his hair every few weeks so that he could stay undercover." She smiled weakly and flicked her eyes upward toward what was obviously hair that matched her brother's. Jack nodded and continued watching her, not realizing the degree of intent in his stare. Winters knew he was studying her in turn, looking for reasons to doubt.

"Six months into it, he was being fed information by an Iraqi man who had all sorts of the usual reasons to hate Saddam. He and Mike became friends and they were careful. There was no cloud of suspicion on the man. One night, he and Mike went out in the desert to meet his family, two wives, sixteen kids, mostly girls, all under fourteen. He and Nasiri got to drinking… too much, of course, and when my brother made his requisition list the next day, he was hung over and he forgot to order the dye he needed and the person checking the list was new; he didn't realize it was missing." Gwen Winters paused, seeing the comprehension come to the faces of the two CTU agents sitting across from her.

"They were on the fringe of the deep desert in a small town with nothing he could find for a substitute and it was another month before he could have a covert drop made, that's how far in he was. Mike kept his head covered but his blond roots got spotted one day, and they searched his rooms, finding enough to take him before a tribunal of elders whose job it was to watch for sedition. They knew that my brother had only one friend and so they went out into the desert and rounded up Nasiri's family. They raped the women in private, and then slowly hacked them and the younger children to death in the village square, oldest to youngest, while Nasiri and my brother were forced to watch."

Jack released the breath he'd been holding and looked away from the doctor and over to O'Brian. She was, as he expected, wearing an expression of dull horror that slowly changed to reluctant irritation with Winters as she wondered if Jack had been ready to hear such a tale. She held her tongue, however, and looked up at the other woman. "I guess he made it back or you wouldn't know all that?"

Winters nodded. "He did. He'd triggered his emergency transponder and a squad of Special Forces arrived four hours later. The villagers had spent the rest of the time torturing Nasiri and my brother, beating them, breaking their legs first, whipping them, burning them. Nasiri begged them to kill him, and they did, with my brother's gun. When Mike was brought back, I took a year off medical school to help my parents care for him. They were too old to do what was needed.

"Over that year, I realized that it wasn't what I could do for my brother physically that mattered most, it was simply talking to him once the catatonia had passed, going through the treatments with him, even joining him at therapy, that made the difference. When he was ready, when someone else was in his life, I went back to medical school and finished my M.D. and then I went back to major in psychology, with a focus on post-traumatic stress. I interned at Walter Reed in D.C. and finally got to where I am now, a program designer and a consultant for special cases."

Jack sat forward and looked down at the floor for several seconds. his head falling into his left hand. He lifted it and seemed about to say something but then laughed to himself for an instant before lifting his head. "I'm sorry about your brother. What, what's he doing now?"

"He's an associate director of marketing. He lives in Seattle. He has a wife, two kids, the SUV. He goes to VFW meetings twice a month and he still has someone he talks to when things resurface."

Chloe sat forward then, "I guess he still has problems with what happened."

Winters nodded and wet her lips, some of the tension leaving her own body as she crossed her legs and leaned slightly forward. "Jack, I'm just going to repeat for you what I'm sure you've heard before but it's even more true now. I can't undo what's been done to you; I can't make you forget or control every reaction going forward, but what I can do is give you the tools to so that those reactions don't dominate your behavior and your choices. It won't be easy and we're not just dealing with what happened when you were recently taken; you've had a lot of negative impacts to every area of your life. Work with me and I have little doubt I can help you but, and you know this already, the first step and in this case the second step is yours. The first one was agreeing to come up here with Chloe. That was a hell of a leap of faith, in her and in yourself. It meant you thought you had a chance to get back on track with the right people around you, but I'd bet you never saw it that way until now."

The breath that Bauer was taking hitched and he finished it more slowly. "No, I didn't. I was doing it for everyone else. Chloe and I are friends. She's the one person I've never had a reason to doubt. If she was willing to do this, with the state I was in, I owed it to her to try."

Winters opened her mouth to answer him but fell silent as O'Brian leaned forward to bring herself even with Bauer. "Look, I'm glad I could help you, Jack, and you never owed me anything but if that's what it took for you to get started, then fine, right? That's over though and we'll call it a draw." She stopped, her own breath catching before she could press forward, her voice barely audible. "We're even, Jack, 'cause until a couple of weeks ago, I never thought being around me could be good for anybody."

Bauer's head snapped up suddenly, as if a wire tethering his forehead to the floor had been cut. He was unsurprised to see O'Brian swiping tears from her eyes with a rough hand, either ashamed of them or worried what the doctor across the coffee table was thinking. He held her eyes long enough that she was able to warn him off at the moment; they would talk later, out from under anyone's scrutiny. Winters felt the dismissal without either of them looking at her and it was time regardless. She wasn't going to get a thing more out of them now, in the wake of O'Brian's admission, that wasn't guarded and filtered through their own well-developed senses of paranoia. Rather than be disappointed, their similar reactions confirmed her convictions.

"Chloe, Jack." It took them a moment to turn toward her and she stood up when they did. "That's enough for today. Chloe, let me talk to you for a minute on the way out."

O'Brian came to her feet, her eyes flashing from side to side, circling the sofa as Winters extended her hand to Jack. "You're where you need to be, Jack. I want to ask you to stay here a few more days, and then we'll decide where to go next but have a little faith in yourself. You deserve it. I want you and Chloe to read through those files on the table. Those are personal logs I've been given by your friends; I think it'll be clear why I've left them here."

He nodded and stood to shake her hand, his grip firm and controlled. Too controlled but she knew that. Gwen circled the sofa and joined O'Brian at the door. As Chloe expected, she stopped on the other side of it, offering a firm, professional smile. "You should be very proud of yourself, Agent O'Brian. You've laid the groundwork he'll need."

Chloe nodded, her lips smiling for a half a second. "Okay, great. I though I probably did okay, especially after that stuff with Agent Griffin. He was just like himself again then." She paused, suddenly blushing and heaving out a quick breath, "And if you wanted to ask me about what I just said in there, about being good for… I didn't… I followed what you said… I haven't slept with Jack, I mean, not like slept with as in… sex."

Gwen Winters felt the smile come to her face before she could stop it. "I know that, Chloe. I was sure you wouldn't or I would never have put you in this situation. Now, should I assume from how deep that blush is that he's… well,… possibly regained the capability?"

The glare froze on O'Brian's face for a moment and then relaxed. "Yeah, he woke up one time and he'd be drea-…"

"That's fine. I'm a doctor, Chloe, remember? You don't need to say anything more… and great, that's always very critical for a man's recovery." Winters smiled again and let it fade. "One other thing, you don't have to tell me what, but has Jack told you what they did to him?"

Chloe hesitated for a moment and then decided it wasn't too much to tell. He would still have to tell her what exactly. "Yeah, he did."

"Okay, then he's taken two huge steps. I won't come up here tomorrow. Help him decompress and you do the same. Oh, and are you still sleeping in the recliner?"

"Yeah."

"Do that tonight, but I want you to start sleeping in the other room. He's going to have to learn to lean on you a little less. It's the best thing you can do for him now."

"Okay. Thanks." Chloe coded open the outer door and sank back against the concrete wall as Winter's left. She gathered herself for a moment and went back into the safehouse, pausing only long enough to seal the door. Jack was on his feet still, watching her as she slowly returned to him and they sat down together, saying nothing as they faced each other until Chloe offered him a tentative smile and Bauer suddenly leaned forward, his hands catching her own. He went down far enough that she could see the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat. She realized he was shaking a little when he sat up enough to look her in the eye. "I'm exhausted. All we did was talk and I'm exhausted. I've had that happen before but not like this. Why… why the hell is it so hot in here?"

"Because that's the way you've kind of wanted it. It didn't matter. Hold on." She was back a moment later, the sound of the air conditioner activating following her return. "It'll be better soon."

"Yeah, it will." Jack sat back and began to fuss at the collar of the shirt, unbuttoning the top two buttons and then unbuttoning the cuffs of both sleeves. "It feels like there's no air in here." Chloe glanced up at the air vent huffing above them. She was cooler already; he just couldn't breathe.

"It's not the air, Jack. Come here, sit up." He obeyed, turning toward her and not reacting as she looked him in the eye and proceeded to unbutton his shirt the rest of the way. He helped her when she started to tug it out from the waistband of his trousers and sat quietly as she pulled the wet material from him and laid it carefully on the coffee table. "Turn around, Jack."

He nodded and curled his leg up onto the sofa, falling back into her touch when it came, feeling his breath return as she worked loose the clenched muscles of his back, her hands traveling without prejudice over the smoothest areas of skin and the worst of the scattering of scars. She worked for the better part of an hour, saying little but whispered orders for him to relax or move one way or the other. She finally stood up so that he could lay flat on the sofa. "Relax. It's just Chloe; it's just me." Her words went without a reply as he began to drift off, his eyes opening only slightly when she turned his arm against the sofa back up behind his back, slowly and carefully, waiting to see the least reaction. The only response she got was his eyes closing again. She smiled to herself and used the new access she had to the most tightened muscles to dig her thumbs gently into this back, careful of the prominent scar across his shoulder blade, pressing firmly enough that the last deep muscle gave way with a jolt that took his breath away for a moment before he fell back. He was taken less by surprise when she repeated the procedure with his other arm pushed gently up behind him.

"Where did you learn that?"

"I work at a computer all day, Silly. I spend my day off at the spa next to my apartment."

He didn't answer; he was nearly out again when she finally stopped, helping him to sit up and settle back against the sofa, his lean frame more relaxed than if he'd actually been asleep. Chloe stood, turning back the air conditioner just a bit then going down the hallway between the bedrooms. Bauer never moved as she crossed the room, and settled down beside him but at the end of the sofa. He opened his eyes only to confirm why she was sitting so far away. Jack pulled the belt off his trousers free and loosened them, then lowered himself onto the pillow now in her lap and lay facing the windows overlooking Los Angeles. He captured her hand against his chest when she finished throwing the heavy dark blue sheet over him. Tears of what she was sure was relief slid slowly out from beneath his eyelids as he turned his head slightly towards her.

"I can do this, can't I?"

"You already are, Jack. You just have to learn to do it for you."

He didn't answer her. In the space of a breath he was gone. His eyes were closed and still as the last of the exhausted tears slipped from them. Chloe relaxed back against the sofa, stroking his forehead, on guard against his nightmares, and trying to reason with the part of her that was sorry this would soon be over.


	17. Chapter 17

Cassie Gibson looked up from the coated map of Los Angeles when the knock on the door came, one eyebrow cocked. "Come in."

A small woman entered, young, blond, dressed in a pale yellow skirt and a low-cut white blouse. She looked at the older woman and then looked away, frowning in frustration for a second. "Are you Cassie Gibson?"

"Well, I assume if I owed you money you'd know me, so I guess so. You're Jack's daughter, aren't you?"

Kim finished entering the room, coming in just far enough to shut the door to Curtis' office behind her and lean against it. "Yeah, I am. May I ask how you know?"

Gibson sat up and dropped the black grease pencil onto the map. "Well, to start you're walking around here with a "Visitor" badge on but no one feels the need to escort you. You're polite; you've got your father's habit of looking off when you're frustrated and eyes about the same color, oh, and you have the initial "K" on your pendant."

Kim Bauer stood motionless for a moment, not sure if she was impressed or intimidated, and then came a little farther into the glass-walled room, glancing at the maps and spread out on the table and then at the lanky, sandy haired woman seated there. She wore a gray pantsuit, trimmed in dark red and an expression that told Kim she'd almost been expecting her. "Are you busy?"

"Not really, I'm waiting for Curtis. He's late getting out of here like everybody else; I'm showing him the communications setup over at my division. You were looking for me though?"

Kim sat down on the desk and for a moment studied the marks Gibson had made on the coated map, unable to determine their significance. "I'm here, well, I don't know why I'm here except I made a promise to your sister and, after all she's done, I owe it to her to keep it. She told me to talk to you before I made up my mind what to do about my dad after he's better."

Gibson's eyes opened slightly, her lower lip vanished between her teeth. "Oh, is that all? She either wants to kill me or make me the Beverly Hills version of the Oracle of Delphi."

Kim smiled at that and folded her arms. "It's okay; I didn't come here thinking you were going to solve anything. I mean, you barely know either of us. This way I can tell Chloe that I talked to you."

"And I can say that you tried." Cassie sat forward suddenly, folding her hands. Kim saw that her knuckles were calloused and rough, betraying her as a martial artist. "Or we actually can try if you want. Sometimes a stranger is the best thing, and I won't hit you with a cover charge and a tab at the end of the evening, plus, even if it's not totally honest, you'll remember what you said."

Kim hesitated and then did sit down, tugging at her short, platinum pony-tail and looking at the table. "I want him to be happy, you know? It's not like I think the things that happen are his fault; it's this dumb job and the fact that he was good at it. I mean, if he weren't doing it right the bad guys wouldn't notice him. I wouldn't be safe."

"Can't argue with that, honey, but I think, if you're like me, you could be blaming somebody."

Kim stared at her for a moment, confused. "You mean myself?"

Gibson looked up at the concrete ceiling and shrugged. "Kim, I worry more about my sister in this stupid job than I do about myself sitting in a marked cruiser at two in the morning in South Central. She worries about me the same way, and you know what we do when we get within earshot of one another… we fight. That's how we get along. If we went around telling each other what we really felt neither one of us would put on a gun or come through the doors here. It's easier to lose a sparing partner than the sister you love, and it might be easier for you in the short run to lose your Dad if and he's just someone you haven't seen for years but, gee, thanks for beautiful eyes and the brains – and oh shit, sorry you died saving my ass and a lot of other people's. Lose him like that and you will really have something to blame yourself for, right?"

Kim backed up a bit at the accusation and the language. "You really are Chloe's sister."

"She learned it all from me but I get to vent directly on little morons without a computer in between so I don't get as frustrated." Gibson smiled and flexed her rough and powerful hands. Kim noticed that the bones of her gun wrist had thickened from dealing with recoil.

"I know what you're saying, Ms. Gibson, but…".

"Just, Cassie, okay? The bullet scars make me feel old enough when it's about to rain."

Kim nodded, "…okay, but I spent a year thinking my Dad was dead, and you know what, I couldn't help it, part of me was relieved that I was suddenly a hell of a lot safer."

Cassie shook her head, "Honey, that's normal. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Trust me... I know all about how your head works when it comes to self-preservation, but – and maybe nobody will tell you this, you're no safer with your Dad alive now no matter where you are. If he didn't see you for ten years and someone came along and grabbed you off the street, do you think he'd let those ten years mean anything? I'm not sitting here pretending to be an expert on your father, but Chlo' and I, we have a big family and we bitch and we scrap and we say some truly.., sometimes amazingly vicious things to each other, but that's out the window if one of us in trouble, even if we don't get into saying the mushy crap. But, let me guess, your Dad is even the kind that says the mushy crap?"

Bauer nodded and suddenly laughed, her eyes darting away from the older woman's. 'Yeah, he is, and it's nice but it's hard to believe it when he goes out the door again. You wondered who he wants to care about more then, you or the rest of the damn world no matter what he said."

"I can tell you the answer to that from anybody who's ever walked out a door with a badge and gun, we're trying to take care of both. Your father is just in a position to see the biggest picture of them all. Yeah, I get pissed when I find a dead two-year-old in a dumpster. Your father, the crew that works here, they get to deal with the trash who would give that kid with a few million people for company. The rest of us ought to be on our knees."

"I know that," Kim replied, her voice taking on a slight edge. "But nobody can deal with that for long. Barry said they should rotate people through here a lot fas---?"

"Who's Barry?"

"My boyfriend. He's a clinical psychologist."

"Oh… oh, mazes, rats, and drooling puppy dogs. Well, except for Gwen Winters I haven't had many of them pass through the "Cassie Respects You" door up here. No offense." She tapped her head. "Every time they dragged me in after a situation they would just tell me that I was using humor to conceal unresolved something or other. Then I'd remind them that some of us just faced the reality that the world was, well… full of people who… basically suck, and I'd rather get a few laughs in on them, not give them all that power in my head."

Kim smiled again, "Barry said Dad had no real sense of humor because of basically the same reason."

"Well, no offense again maybe, but it sounds to me like Barry needs to say a lot less. Is Barry telling you you should be away from your dad?"

"Well, not now, not since he's been back. He knows he's not well."

"Not now, though? He did before?"

Kim blushed slightly and tugged at her hair again. "Not exactly but he was concerned that I wasn't safe."

Cassie bit back the immediate question that rose: safe for Barry or from him. The one that made it past her lips was almost as much of a surprise to the younger woman. "That's all true, I'm sure but you know, if I were most men, no matter what shape he's in, would I want a woman in my life having me in her head at the same time as Jack Bauer?"

…

Chloe O'Brian smiled to herself and continued brushing her thumb in short strokes over Jack's bare arm. He was awake; he had been for a good while but he had also opted not to move. He had probably guessed that Winters had told her she would have them leave in a few days, that it was time Chloe to return to her life and he to return to whatever capacity might suit he and CTU both while he finished recovering. He wasn't about to stand around and wait for Winters to pry open his head for a few hours every week and Bill would know that, some low-stress desk job was probably waiting for him for a while at least. More than that he couldn't guess and beyond the walls of CTU the confusion, the emptiness was even more prominent. Audrey would offer for him to stay with her and he likely would, seeing what there might be to recover of their relationship. As he had been tortured, however, she had also been reminded for week after painful week, of all the things she hated about his life, about the work that had come to define so much of who he was.

As for Kim, Jack knew going back to this business again would probably lose her to him forever, would make her a target once more. As worried as he was about his own mental state, the thought of his daughter in the hands of his enemies terrified him more, and now his capacity to deal with it if she ever were was permanently in question. The past was still too alive for them and, as far as he knew, she was still living with Barry. The thought of returning home, to the company of yet another head doctor watching his every move was enough to put him off going to stay with Kim regardless. Yet he was able to take care of himself now, so Jack left open the small possibility that Kim would come and stay with him for a while. He hoped that Barry didn't have so much influence over her that he would stop her now.

The one place that would feel like a haven Winters would bar him from going and justly so, Jack knew. … and there was no way regardless to ask to stay with Chloe until he was back on his feet enough to live, once again, alone. He already hated to think that one person in his life that had been so crucial for him these past few weeks would soon be absent. Winters would now tell him that he needed to find strength within himself, and he knew she would do her best to help him. Jack was, however, still fighting the cowering man aboard the Shanghai who wanted nothing more than to be left alone to deliver the double-edged blow of his own end. That man was growing weaker, however, losing his battle against the Jack Bauer who now rested in Chloe O'Brian's embrace, staring out at the city he thought he'd never see again, remembering what it had been like to be in his daughter's arms.

For the moment, he was safe in body and mind, still had a last few days to take advantage of the support Chloe O'Brian had offered without strings attached, in a circumstance everyone had thought against her nature. Most people had already forgotten that she had taken on the responsibility of Chase's young child in the midst of another day of chaos.

The watch he'd not worn for so long beeped to signal the passing of another hour. Jack turned his arm to glance at it and scowled. Unable to lie still any longer, he turned on Chloe's lap and drew her eyes to him with a single long breath that fell out of rhythm. Chloe looked down instantly and her hand fell to the top of his head. He smiled and, eyes closed, turned toward her further, then took her other hand, the one that had been stroking his arm. "Thank you for staying with me. That wasn't as bad as I thought. Winters knows what she's doing. She knew I wasn't going to turn my head over to someone I had no reason to trust… and she realized the only way I could move forward was you."

It was Chloe who looked away this time, even if his eyes were still closed. "I speeded things up, Jack. I'll give myself that much credit but you're Jack, you always make it, that's what I always kept telling myself when I was running comms and the world was going to hell around you. If I didn't think that I wouldn't have been able to deal with this stupid job at all. Oh, and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to turn the whole thing into group therapy. You don't need me sharing my problems but I guess what I said wasn't too much of a surprise."

Jack laughed, still not opening his eyes, "Neither was the blunt and honest part of it, or the fact that you underestimated yourself. You just needed the right … circumstance."

"Yeah, well, next time just skin your knees in the parking lot or get the flu," she snapped softtly, wanting to break the mood of her confession, end the flattery. The last thing she wanted to hear was Jack telling her how great she was… the very last thing… the absolute last thing. Her mouth opened again. "I mean, people think that analysts have it easy, figure out where and when and just read stuff off a computer, but… it's like, the most powerless job in the world sometimes. That's why I hate running new agents, like what went down with Griffin. If you hadn't been here he'd probably be dead."

Jack's eyes opened then, 'Funny, I usually think the same thing about you and me, just without the qualifier."

Chloe, predictably, rolled her eyes but didn't argue and reminded herself that had been the last thing most of her brain had wanted to hear before the part of her brain that controlled her mouth set her up for it. Putting her self-recriminations aside, she let her thumb stroke Jack's forehead and his eyes closed again and he pressed against her touch, turning toward her and reaching out his arms. He stopped himself, however, his breathing suddenly taking on a slightly frantic edge. Chloe pulled away immediately but Jack took her hands in his as he sat up, the dark blue sheet falling from his bare torso and gathering around his waist, the pillow falling to the floor as she turned to face him. "What's wrong?"

Bauer tried to pull away from her and found he was unable to make himself do so. Unaware of the dichotomy, she watched him struggle for a moment and then relax enough to look her in the eye. "Nothing's wrong. It's all too… right, and it's not fair to you."

"Me? I'm fine, Jack. The only thing I care about is … that you… get what you need to do whatever you want. Maybe you could teach at CTU, here or back in DC. They've pretty much humiliated the Chinese into never looking for you again. We caught the president there issuing orders that you never be mentioned again after he knew we'd found out about Logan's deal. … or you could may---."

"Chloe."

He said it quietly, but she stopped talking, acutely aware of his hands still holding hers. "When you touch me, the pain stops. There's suddenly a wall and I want to hide behind it but I can't do that and be who I was. I need to be able to protect the people around me; that's who I've always been; that's who I want to be again."

Chloe shook her head quickly, focusing on the last part of what he'd said to spare herself taking credit for the first. "You can do whatever you want, Jack. Maybe you shouldn't but maybe you should find a different way for a while. The best way you can protect us now is take care of yourself. Read those files Winters left, Jack. I flipped through them while you were out; they're what we all went through trying to find you, nothing sappy, just the mission logs, the on-duty rosters – which are pretty skimpy since nobody ever signed out much. They were a pretty clever thing for Winters to bring up here."

Bauer forced himself to calm again and let go of her hands, noticing how red they were and the dents and creases he had left in the flesh. Somehow she kept herself from rubbing them together. "Do you trust her?"

Chloe nodded quickly. "I watched her with you and with some of the others who were there with you when I was. She worked with them more then because I was the only person you seemed to believe when the drugs wore off. Anyhow, she was great with people, even the people who were just there to visit. She understood. I guess we know why now."

Jack nodded and sat back on the sofa. "She's not coming tomorrow?"

"No, she said for you… us… to decompress, whatever." Chloe's head suddenly lifted and she took off for her room to reappear with the laptop a moment later. "Look, I can show you how she works, sort of." Chloe opened the computer and her fingers flashed across it, opening the wireless link to CTU. "Uhm, I'm not supposed to do this, medical ethics and all, but I'll knock off the audio so it won't really matter. I helped set the system up so this won't take a second. It's not like I have to break in or something. They wouldn't have a reason to change the---. Got it."

The screen of the computer was suddenly divided into four sections, each showing a black and white picture that it took Jack a moment to recognize was CTU's the medical wing. One view was of the main wing, another view was of Winters' own small office. The third was of an empty room Jack didn't immediately recognize but that Chloe told him was the observation room. The last camera had been on Jack himself, sleeping fitfully in the bed where he had spent the last several weeks. At the bottom right hand corner, an identical time and date stamp ran on all four.

Chloe looked at the date and decided nothing was happening that would be a distraction. "Winters had us put these cameras in anywhere she'd be treating someone, so that if they accused her of something, she could show them what was going on and where she was. She said, like you were, a lot of people had been tortured by medical personnel, so archives of these tapes were supposed to help prove that she or anybody here didn't hurt them if that's what all they thought they remembered."

O'Brian looked back at the screen and realized she couldn't recall the dates where Jack and tried to kill the nurse and almost succeeded and then got hold of the two doctors. He didn't need to see that: neither did she. Talking him down had been enough, seeing the terror on his face had sent her home for the day after the new drug had put him back out. She knew it had been early on that that had happened. "Here, let me try something a little later, like when you were getting the hell out of there." She knew that date. Her fingers sailed over the keyboard, not so fast that she didn't start the digital feed sometime after he'd thrown up on her, when he'd come to his senses for the first time in weeks. "Here, this is where she just left us alone. She didn't even hang around to be there when you woke up. She wanted it just to be me and then she came in later but this is how she does things, Jack. She just works with people in security fields so she knows how hard it is to get people to trust her."

Jack nodded and watched the screens playing out before him. Buchanan and Audrey parted company in one corner and the CTU director went into Winters' office, involved in a long and obviously intense discussion, even from what they could tell with it muted. On the upper left screen, Jack watched himself take the first natural sleep he had in weeks, Chloe sitting next to him, occasionally speaking to him or fussing over him awkwardly in a way that came easily now. Chloe forwarded the recording, letting it go back to a normal speed when Winters left her office and Bill to rejoin Jack and Chloe in the other room, explaining to them what the next few weeks would be like if Jack was willing to put himself in her hands. 

Bauer sat up as the doctor left the view of the camera that had been focused on Chloe and himself, watching the two of them on the screen and remembering the awkward but inevitably honest conversation, remembering that Chloe had somehow gotten him to agree to this without feeling pressured. On the bottom screen, they watched Bill Buchanan stand up and leave Winters' office. As her door closed, the door into the room on the screen above it, the observation room, opened - slowly and cautiously, the entry of someone who didn't belong where they were going. The tiny black and white figure of Audrey Raines shut the door quickly once she was inside and stepped up to the one-way glass wall. As one hand pressed against it, the other balled into an angry fist.

On the screen facing it, unaware of her observation, Chloe O'Brian was awkwardly freeing Jack Bauer of the hospital gown and dressing him carefully, respect and caution evident in every move. The Chloe who was watching herself now huffed out a sudden breath, an expression of revulsion overtaking her. "That… She was watch---?" Chloe silenced herself in seconds, her own sense of violation and resentment forgotten when she looked at Jack Bauer. His jaw was clenched and his eyes had taken on the same hard gleam that she remembered when she had watched him gun down David Palmer's assassin. O'Brian turned toward him but didn't touch him. "Jack, she was really upset that Winters wanted me for this and everything happened really fast. She wasn't think---."

"I don't care what she was thinking. She knew why she couldn't be there. I only care that she didn't trust you. What the hell did she think you were going to do to me, what she'd done already?" Jack demanded, his face growing flush.

Chloe looked away from the anger in his eyes, from the pain, cursing herself even though she was blameless. "Jack, please, you need to calm down. Audrey screwed up, so what. I do it all the time."

Jack did calm down then, too quickly and too deeply, his rage and betrayal fading from his narrowed eyes. "Not like that and not with me. I hear your voice and I hear the truth. When you go behind someone's back, it's for me." He sat still for a moment and then moved with the strength and speed that Chloe remembered, his arms suddenly coiling around her, his lips demanding a response from her own that instinct provided. Her hands were crushed against his bare chest for a moment before she pulled them free and her arms went around his back. She kissed him in return, until her gently traveling fingers slid over one of the deepest scars on his back, and lingered there, traveling its length for several seconds. Not her; she wasn't about to be the next person who hurt him. Chloe lowered her arms to his waist and pulled back from him.

"Jack, we can't do this. You're just upset. What Audrey did was wrong but this won't help, not really. It might for a second but you'll just make things worse for yourself later and I don't want to be a part of that. I won't hurt you, Jack."

Bauer backed off slowly, looking down as the tears threatened in his eyes. "I know. I know that. I just wanted to be with somebody who means it but you deserve better. Our friendship deserves better."

Chloe glared at the ceiling, her arms still around him. "Jack, forget it. You kissed me when you were upset, just this time you were actually conscious. Don't make it more than it was. I already just really, totally, completely forgot, okay?"

Bauer looked at her then, his gaze direct as two tears glistened down his suddenly calm face, made their way past the dull smile that was suddenly only his thin lips. "I take it all back, Nurse Chloe. You've got the worst bedside manner in the world." With that his head dropped onto her shoulder and he smiled when he felt her laughing.


	18. Chapter 18

"I guess dinner is out of the question?"

Gwen Winters looked up from the fourth page of notes in front her to the cheery smile on Martha Logan's well-made face and sculpted hair. "No, it's not if you can wait a few minutes. I need a break."

Martha slid the rest of the way into the office door only her head had entered. "Long day?"

"Yes and no… a "Jack" day but a good one." She smiled thinly and put down the heavy metal pen, stretching cramped fingers and sitting back.

"You finally saw him?" Martha sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk and glanced at her watch. Aaron wasn't expecting her for another hour even allowing for drive-time in Los Angeles.

"Yeah, you know I can't say much. This time I'm not trying to get second hand information from what you observed but he's doing fine. He's doing better than I would have thought just based on observing him and talking to Chloe. I spent most of the time telling him about me, about my brother, about what I hoped we could do. He's receptive but he's still on guard."

"Has he made the big leap yet?"

Winters sighed heavily and nodded, deciding she wasn't stepping over the lines of confidentiality allowing for the time Martha had spent with Bauer before even she had. "Not with me, but he told Chloe what they did to him. I'll be next."

"You sound awfully sure about that."

"Because I am. It's no secret Jack's run a couple of high profile missions, rogue in some cases except for Agent O'Brian, and he's had more than his share of personal challenges at the same time but he's no different than most of them when it comes down to it. They want to go back. It's the only way they can live with what these jobs force them to do."

Martha's face twitched with curiosity. "What do you mean by that?"

Gwen shifted forward, lacing her fingers and dropping her chin onto her hands with a tired and distantly fond expression. "This is only my theory, and it's just based on observation, and I'm not just talking about Jack, I think they all want to go back because if they try to leave these jobs behind, what they've done in the line of duty, the killings, the injuries they've inflicted, the destruction, intended and collateral, starts to catch up with them if they stop. If they stay with this job, instead of thinking of the last few people they shot, they can focus on the next batch that they can save, focus on the next mission. If they succeed they get another batch of tickmarks in the "lives saved" column and that helps for a while; if they don't – they just throw themselves even harder into the next one… you get the picture."

"And that makes you sure Jack wants back into this insanity?" Martha drew her lower lip into her teeth. "Sorry, poor choice of words. This is why I have speech writers for most occasions."

Winters allowed herself a small laugh. "Don't tell anybody this but, and thank God for them, they're all crazy to want these jobs long before I deal with them, including people who marry ambitious politicians." Both women laughed this time, one with self-recrimination that she could smile about now. The doctor watched her do so with a bit of inescapable pride. Martha was technically no longer her patient (they had become too close for that) yet she knew she was responsible in part for the renewed life of the woman before her. "But in answer to your question, Jack has been telling us he wanted help since he was himself enough to do it. His agreement to go to the safehouse when he was so dependent, his complacency with you when he fell, telling Agent O'Brian what happened to him, jumping in to talk Agent Griffin through a live operation, all it of tells me he wanted help even before he was ready for it. That's why I left them up there twice as long as I normally would. I'm going back up the day after tomorrow."

Martha sent a sigh into the still air of the small office. "Well, whatever it takes, you do. This country owes Jack Bauer an incalculable debt many times over, and I owe him a personal one. What happened with Agent Griffin?"

"Well, that's nothing confidential but it was the most drama to hit this place for a while thankfully. Jack jumped in on an agent Chloe was tagging and talked him through what was supposed to have been a simple reconnaissance set-up. The kid ended up with unfriendly company somewhere up in the hills when Agent O'Brian was working with him, at first just to test the equipment. It turned into an actual live-hostiles situation. Jack had an insight how to help and he took over the comm."

"My God. And?"

"… and just listening it was like the past few months never happened to him. He was thinking for all of them. I heard almost all of it live."

Martha shook her head and stood up. "Well, you can almost take the boy out of CTU but you can't take CTU out of the boy. Meet me up in the motor pool, south entrance. I won't be here but a few days more then CNN needs me in Atlanta. Let me know how Jack is or tell him or Chloe to call me. …and if either of them wants some time really away from all this, I want them use my new place up at Vail. It's isolated; it's quiet as death, and it's not in my name so no nosey neighbors or press."

"I'll tell them. See you soon." She waved Martha out and picked up the pen again but ended up staring at the wall until the knock came at the door. "Come in."

Audrey Raines shut the door behind her with a soft click and offered the doctor a tight smile. She had the same guarded look on her face that nearly everyone did when they walked into her office, patient or not, wondering what she was making of every involuntary movement or eye flicker. "You left a message for me to see you."

"Have a seat, Mrs. Raines. I wanted to talk to you about Jack. I'm going to suggest to him he come back down here in a few days. I think he's had the time he needed to get himself grounded again. I saw him today."

Audrey stood for a moment more and then sat down in the chair that Martha had vacated, tugging down the skirt of her green and black suit. She was no longer controlling herself quite so much and the relief on her face was evident as was the reluctant gratitude. "Am I here because there's something I can do now?"

"Well, yes and no. There might be. Jack needs somewhere to stay. He's past where he needs someone to physically care for him but he's not ready to be alone. If it's what he wants, would you be able to have him stay with you for a few weeks?"

Audrey sighed sharply and lowered her head into her hands for the briefest moment. "Of course, if that's what he wants. I don't know what other alternative there would be, though. I don't know where he stands with his daughter."

"No, I don't really either but I don't think it's any less complex than his relationship and history are with you. She's also living with a psychologist and I doubt he wants to go home and feel like he's being observed. He suffered enough of a loss of privacy the past few months."

Audrey withheld comment at that, unable to justify in her mind leaving him in the care of Chloe O'Brian for so long if that was Winters' concern. "Please tell him the offer is there if that's what he wants."

"Oh, and Bill has arranged for him to get his clearance back and catch up on where we…where CTU stands right now when the time is right. That'll probably be sooner rather than later; he'll need to have something to focus on outside of his memories and worrying about his future. I'm going to suggest he not come back here in this building to start, that he works from where he'll be living. I don't want him back in this atmosphere again for a while but there's plenty that's productive and real he can do remotely once he's back up to speed. I assume you have a secure computer line available?"

"Of course." Audrey kept the relief and gratitude out of her voice but not the doubt. "I'll be glad to do this but I was hoping what you had in mind was to advise him to get away from this life. He probably still has enough enemies out there without returning to a job that will make him new ones."

Winters nodded and flexed her hands. "I thoroughly understand that and I don't entirely disagree but I'm here to help Jack, anyone I treat, be able to make their own choices, not to tell them what those choices are unless I deem them unfit for duty and I haven't had anywhere near enough time to "inflict" that verdict on Jack. If I did, as far as his own safety, there's no guarantee he'd not find something just as dangerous to do in the private sector in any case. I think what will be on his mind is that at least if he's with CTU he'll have some very heavy resources backing him up if something were to happen to him or someone about whom he cares."

Audrey sighed and came to her feet. "Tell him I'm available. Tell him I won't pressure him one way or another." Raines slipped back out into the corridor, looking at the endless array of glass and steel, hearing the distant hum of computers and the sounds of booted feet somewhere in the distance, intruded upon by the muted clatter of weapons and the sound of a man's sharp laugh. God, how she had come to hate this place. Why couldn't he?

… …

Chloe O'Brian woke to the sound of running water, two rooms off and muffled but clear enough that she knew what it was. She started to get up and stopped herself as her feet hit the floor, fighting her instinct to run into the bathroom and make sure that Jack was okay, that he wasn't shivering on the floor of the shower as a result of the attempt. She forced herself to wait until she heard him moving around; he'd at least had the presence of mind to leave the door to the bathroom open in case it all became too much for him. Chloe scowled angrily at the world, at the idea that Jack Bauer had had to work up the nerve to take a shower on his own. The scowl morphed into a smile a few seconds later; the important thing was that he had done it, had bested the people who had turned his life into a nightmare. Regret that he hadn't needed her this morning never entered into her mind.

Jack returned to his room to find Chloe sitting up, the recliner folded into a seated position. He was wearing only a blue towel around his hips but his state of undress was, of course, of no concern to either of them. He sat down on the bed as she stood up, watching him carefully. "Are you okay?"

He looked up from dragging a second towel over his hair and smiled distantly. "Now, yes. I had a couple of times where the sound of the water was… uh… enough to… but I managed."

"Yeah, of course you did. I just wish you'd told me you were gonna' try, just in case something happened." She took the towel from him and scowled slightly as he turned to reach for the clothes he had laid out on the bed, seeing his back was still wet. He stopped reaching and relaxed against her as she slowly dried his back, the towel traveling blindly and gently over the network of scars. She stepped back when she finished and he pulled the white undershirt over his head then turned and pulled the dark slacks and the short-sleeved green shirt into his lap.

"You're right, I probably should have said something but I thought I could cope. I had to try but I knew you were here."

Chloe nodded and backed away from him, taking the towel with her. "I'll go burn some toast or something. Winters should be here in a couple of hours."

It was almost exactly that when the warning chime of the outer door sounded and Winters arrived, her hair in a ponytail and her face unmade except for lipstick and a touch of mascara. She was wearing a black sweater over her black pants. She looked suddenly much younger and smaller. She offered her hand to Jack as he finished relocking the heavy steel door. "You look rested this time."

Bauer nodded then looked away as they walked slowly over to the living area and took the seats they had on the doctor's first visit. Chloe joined them from the kitchenette moments later, settling down next to Bauer with not quite as much distance between them as the last time, once again settling a tray of cold drinks on the table. Winters noted that this time the temperature in the safehouse was nowhere near as warm as she picked one of the glasses up and sat back, "It gets easier after today, Jack. We got the first visit behind us so I'm hoping you feel like you can work with me enough to actually get started a little. If that's what you want."

Bauer looked up then, his gaze zeroing in on her, "Of course, yes. I should have said something before but thank you, I know you're not exactly just another doctor they could have sent for me. You must be needed a lot of places or have other things demanding your attention besides one CTU agent."

"Nothing I couldn't handle from here just the same as D.C. or anywhere else and I won't be here forever but I'm not going anywhere anytime soon so I hope we can make good use of the time. That's up to you though." She kept her gaze calm and implacable even as Bauer looked away again and nodded, recognizing his unconscious attempt to push her away, to send her off. For men like Bauer the resistance stage of this was always the toughest. She hoped the extraordinary means of breaking through it that trust immersion provided had been as effective as she hoped. "Jack, you've made two huge steps already to getting past what was done to you. You came up here in the first place, probably because you thought it would be a refuge from me to some extent – and it is that for a while, but I'm willing to bet the last few weeks have been some of toughest you've faced without gunfire."

That drew a smile from Bauer that he didn't expect himself and he turned to find a matching one on O'Brian's elfin face before it dissolved into a heartfelt scowl. He turned away from her and looked Gwen Winters in the eye. "Actually, the ones with the gunfire are easier, then the enemy's outside."

Good, he was making this surprisingly easy so far. "So, the enemy is inside this time? That's another good leap, Jack. What we need to do is make that enemy your friend again, have you accept him for who he is." She let him settle on that thought for a moment and then looked over at O'Brian. "That second huge step I mentioned, Jack, was telling Chloe what they did to you."

Bauer's gaze flicked to the woman beside him for a moment before heading to the floor but instead of the betrayal she feared, his expression was one of relief. He lifted his head after several seconds and nodded. "Chloe was upset that she'd done something that brought some of it back to me but I hadn't told her anything so she didn't know. Then she was afraid it might happen again if she didn't know the rest of… what, what they did."

"So you told Chloe to protect her?"

"Yes."

"What you also did, Jack, was move toward protecting yourself. And what you need to do now is take the third huge step but I'm hoping I can make it seem not quite as bad."

"You want me to tell you." Jack responded, sitting up and steeling himself with a long, solid breath. His gaze retreated inward even as the force of the breath drew his shoulders up and he closed his eyes for several seconds. He didn't see Winters lean toward him or the thin smile on her lips as her elbows came to rest on her knees.

"No, Jack, I want you to tell Chloe again."

His eyes opened then and he looked from Winters to the woman next to him. Chloe turned where she sat, her posture the same as when he had first opened the door to the darkness. She was waiting for his decision, would support whatever he wanted to do now; her show of silent patience was the encouragement he needed. Bauer turned toward his constant and offered her his hand, let the moment that had led to his telling her before recreate itself. With a quick look at the doctor for permission, Chloe reached back, her long fingers folding around Jack's own, her other hand draping across the tender skin inside his forearm. His heart was racing but he was shivering ever so slightly.

Winters' voice dropped an octave after she let them sit for a moment, preparing themselves, "Jack, before you start, let me ask you something; after you told Chloe what happened n the ship, how did you feel?"

Jack retreated for a moment, remembering the look in O'Brian's eyes as he'd spoken, her struggle for control, holding her in his arms when she'd reached her breaking point for him, the burden that had been halved as the words had left him, and how peacefully he'd slept afterwards. "I knew… I felt I wasn't alone any more."

Winters' own head dropped for a moment to conceal a hard-won grin. Her expression was restrained, however, when she lifted her gaze back to the tense, blond man hunched toward an equally wary but patient Chloe O'Brian. "Exactly, Jack, and things were a little easier after that. Now you knew Chloe knew what to do and what not to do, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, that's great. Jack, I'm not trying to fool you into thinking I'm not here in some way or playing tricks on you. You're too smart for that but I want you to close your eyes, I want you to go back to just after you told Chloe what they did to you. I want you to remember how you felt."

Jack nodded, his eyes falling shut, and in a few moments he visibly relaxed. Without being told by Winters, Chloe's hand that had been resting against his forearm began to move, stroking him lightly as she had days ago, even moving up under his sleeve. The doctor nodded a slow approval and then put her attention back on Bauer. "Jack, you know you're safe. You're with someone you trust and you're with someone who's trained to help you. Take your time, talk to Chloe. Chloe, just say to Jack whatever you recall from that conversation."

Chloe nodded and thought back, telling Bauer again what she had known of his injuries when he was brought back, prompting him as she had before with what they already knew. She glanced over at Winters occasionally as Bauer opened up, telling her again of what had been done to him, of the times between, the trips to the medical lab, the enforced sickness, his time locked in the shipping container, the acupuncture needles, the electrical shocks, and the final beating he had received when the Chinese knew they'd been found out, this time learning it was then when the cuts had been made into his back. Winters shook her head each time Chloe looked to her for guidance, her hand never stopping its focusing stroke on the inside of his arm. An hour had passed before they realized it and Bauer had rarely opened his eyes during the process. He did finally, sitting up but not turning his head.

"The next thing I remember was Chloe and realizing I wasn't in pain."

Winters sat back, taking a moment to decompress herself, "That's a very powerful memory to associate with someone, Jack. It's part of why you can do this now, and you did it and it's over. How are you feeling?"

Bauer turned back straight on the sofa, realizing he was again covered in sweat. "I don't know."

"That's okay. I know one thing you should be feeling - that you've had enough of me." She stood up slowly, smiling when he followed her.

"What now?"

Winters tapped her steepled fingers against her lips. "I have to think about that a little, okay? There's nothing about this process that comes automatically. There are patterns, yes, but I need to work out the right one. I know you're exhausted, just find something else to focus on for a while. One thing I want you to reinforce to yourself is that I'm not the enemy. When I first came up here, the first thing you asked me was if I could just call you "Jack". I think what you were really asking was, "Do I have to call you "Doctor", because you were tortured in part in a medical setting. One thing we'll have to be especially on guard against is your transferring a disproportionate amount of that resentment to me. You don't remember me treating your physical injuries now; you might later or think you are, if you start to feel that happen I need to know. From now on if you need a medical doctor it can't be me. I don't think you're going to tie me too closely to what was done to you in that manner but don't worry, at some point, you're going to be very angry with me. If we can escape the worst of that transference phase, then we'll have another beast conquered, okay?"

Jack nodded slowly and stepped out from behind the coffee table behind Chloe, "I understand. I'll let you know. Right now from the time I saw Curtis to the time I saw Chloe is just a huge void but I have a feeling I should thank you for that."

Winters stopped as they reached the door, "Well, I have done this before and, if it's any comfort at all, there wasn't anything new about what you told me. They wanted you alive but under control. They didn't want to do anything permanently debilitating but if they somehow got you to spill a few secrets in the meantime…. Well, great for them, right? I'm not dismissing it, Jack. I just can't get caught up in my own anger when I have to deal with this on a daily basis for a lot of people."

Jack looked down at her with a sudden, overwhelming sympathy. "I never thought about that."

"It's not your problem and it's not to stop you from sharing anything. I only offer that by way of explanation if I do seem very, very detached at any point. I am still a human being in here. I just have a job to do. I know you understand that so consider it an apology ahead of time if I suddenly seem as icy as my name." She smiled and took the hand that he offered to her, his eyes once again on the floor.

"Thank you."

"No, thank you. I know trust comes hard for you, Jack, probably more than anyone I've worked with till now." She turned slightly to face the other woman in the room. O'Brian had drifted away from them, offering them what privacy she could. "Chloe, don't answer me back, you've done a remarkable job for someone who only saw "screwing up" as a possibility. If all of my patients had someone like you, my job would be a lot easier. And change of plans, stay with Jack tonight. I'll call as soon as I know what's next. Both of you take care."

Jack watched her go with a smile that faded slowly, his eyes on Chloe as she resealed the door and crossed over to him as he returned to the sofa, sitting down slowly and taking a few hesitant breaths. "Thank you … again. I couldn't have done that without you. I almost don't even remember tell--- telling…" Jack stopped talking, his hand pressing slowly against his head. Chloe was in front of him instantly.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm sick. I feel sick."

Chloe moved before he could say more, gathering him up and getting him into the bathroom just in time. She knelt down next to him on the tile as he spent the next several minutes throwing up, her hands bracing his forehead and his back, talking to him quietly and leaving him only long enough to come back with a cold rag in her hand. She eased him back when he seemed to have finished, flushing the toilet and folding the rag to wipe his face down again and bringing him something to rinse his mouth.

She pulled him to his feet a few minutes later and eased him onto her bed, coming back with a fresh cold rag seconds later. Jack lay still, watching her every move with a strange calm as she wiped him down, opening his shirt slightly but still soaking it. "Are you okay now?"

Bauer lay still for a moment more and then sat up carefully, his gaze clear and calm. "Yeah, I am. Just my nerves were shot I think. I feel…," he suddenly stopped, his face suddenly relaxing in a way she had only seen when he slept. "I feel fine, Chlo'."

She sat down on the side of the bed again and smiled thinly, knowing he meant a great deal more than the nausea having passed. She accepted his embrace without hesitation this time, letting slip a few tears of her own as she kissed his cheek. "You'll get through this, right?" He nodded against her neck and stood, pulling her with him until they were before the picture windows once again. Los Angeles splayed out before them, disappearing out into the smog-filled distance. O'Brian looked up at him as their hands pressed against the window and Bauer met her eyes after a few seconds, his hand moving to cover her own on the cool glass.

"We'll get through it. Suddenly, it doesn't look so terrible out there any more."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

**They slowed their preparations to leave only when there was nothing else to do. A half dozen large suitcases stood next to the double doors for Curtis and a few of the others to come and retrieve. Unlike when they had arrived, when things had already been in place for them, Winters had strongly suggested they pack their belongings themselves. The reasoning escaped neither of them.**

**There had come the time, however, when they had finished, when the six tan suitcases, tagged with their names, had been stacked by the door, when they had eaten the dinner Jack had fixed, and they were left to their most difficult task before leaving, parting with each other. **

**They ended up where they had before now; Chloe eased herself down onto the tan sofa as if she were trapped in molasses. The smile on her face was genuine and untwisted. She was happy for the man sitting before her, previously so broken, forced to ask for her help for the most basic necessities, his mind struggling to cope from one moment to the next. All she had ever done was tell him the truth, gave him her loyalty when she knew he deserved it, and she understood now that coming from her – being told he could survive what had been done to him- he had no reason not to believe it. When she felt herself finally seated on the couch she saw Bauer turn toward her, his hand cradling her face as his elbow propped against the sofa back. This time she gave in, turning her cheek into the gentle roughness of his hand. His thumb dragged at the tears that fell.**

**Jack Bauer, for once, had no desire to turn away from the uncomfortable sight before him. It wasn't Chloe that was making him ill-at-ease it was his own inadequacy; he had a degree in English and there were no words he could find that would let him relay his gratitude, his relief, or his still prevailing disbelief that Chloe O'Brian would have spent the last days as she had and that she had enabled him to come so far. She was doing what she had done before now as she watched him in turn, letting him compose his thoughts, making it clear that if he said nothing she would understand. In a way that silence would be easier for both of them but for all that she had done she deserved that he simply try. Winters had been right, the memories he now associated with her were incredibly powerful. It took him a moment even to speak her name and when he did, her eyes closed and the smile on her face broadened against his hand. **

"**You don't have to say anything, Jack."**

**Bauer shook his head, giving a slow vent to a fraction of that disbelief. "Of course I do. Chloe, I had no right to expect you to do this, even if I'd known how far I could come."**

**Chloe reached up to cover his hand with her own as it cradled her face. "I don't know why you keep saying that. It's like saving my life didn't mean anything to you, like it didn't to me. You gave up your cover; you gave up Diane and Derek. I don't know, maybe it would help if you took some credit once in a while, Jack." For a few seconds, she thought he would look away but instead he simply nodded, a slow smile tugging at one side of his mouth.**

"**It's about what I've done to get the credit, Chlo', but this isn't about me. I want now to be about you. I want to thank you; I never thought I'd get off that ship, when I was on it or in my head once I was home. I couldn't even understand I was home until I heard it from you." He did look away now, when the tears falling from her eyes began in earnest. She didn't make a sound, just watched him with a pain that returned any time they touched upon his abduction and imprisonment. When he could no longer stand to see it, he leaned forward and kissed her, calmly and gently, backing away when she stopped kissing him back several seconds later. Chloe took hold of his face before he could retreat completely, refusing to let him turn away.**

"**Jack, I didn't do this because I love you – like that, I did it because you're my friend, and I wanted to give you back the life you gave up. That's only fair, right? You said before we came up there that you needed me to tell you what to do. Well, I'll do that one last time. You have to go back to your life, you have to be yourself again, and do what you want. I don't want you…". She stopped, her breath catching as she let her own walls down, admitted what she was feeling herself because she couldn't ever spare either of them the truth. "I don't want you to think of me as more than your friend. You've gone through too much, and you've got so much in your head: I don't want to be one more regret."**

**His face still inches from her own, Jack's eyes narrowed and his lips parted with slow shock, caught between denial and frustration. He stared at her for a few seconds before reaching up and placing two fingers firmly over her mouth and his other hand on her neck. "How can someone who has it in her to do what you've done for me consider yourself a regret? You're the only person who's ever been this close to me who's always put me first… and there have been times when I've been unfair to you, thoughtless, used you without meaning to, because I knew you'd be there. I never had any right to expect your help when Winters asked, and now you're pushing me away for the most selfless reason of all. The truth is, I wouldn't deserve you if you---." Jack stopped as she suddenly tugged his arm firmly enough to drag his hand away from her mouth and then used it to cover his. Jack's trembling lips parted beneath her own, her tongue gently penetrating him a moment later as she took his mouth slowly and deeply, his tongue offering no resistance as it was fondled by her own. Her mind blank with need, her heart pounding as she felt his jaw slacken, Chloe felt the tension leave him completely, but then felt his tears dampen her face. It was the tears that stopped her, the idea of his being used, being in any more pain. **

**Just when Bauer thought the kiss might not end Chloe suddenly pulled back, forcing herself to release him, gathering up his hands and wondering how a man who could do the things she'd heard and seen him do, could look so lost in an instant. Self-recrimination and embarrassment suddenly made their mark on her expression. "I'm sorry, Jack. I shouldn't have done that. But, … those things… what you said to me. I couldn't think all of a sudden and I kind of have to think for both of us right now. You're not yourself yet but when you are then you can sort things out. I did this so you could get your life back, Jack, not because I was trying to make one with you. I have to do the right thing here. I don't want you, I don't want anybody, because they're scared, because I have that much say over them. I did that and ended up married to a guy whose biggest thrill turned out to be selling shoes to useless people with too much money." She stopped talking, unsure of what to say next and wanting to stop herself before she said something that would inevitably be wrong. She'd had her mouth get away from her in too many other tense moments, now was not going to be one of them, not with Jack and not with what he was about to face, returning to the world that had gone on without them, to whatever Winters would have him face and relying on the strength he had regained. **

**Jack Bauer had had women turn him down before, some scared of his life, and some he didn't know were involved with other men, some who preferred men with dark hair, a dozen different reasons. He'd never had one turn him down because she loved him already, because she wanted to do what she believed was the right thing for him. He wanted to reach for her again, wanted to feel her around him, wanted to feel the rest of the world fall away to nothing… and in that moment knew she was right. For now he couldn't tell what was love and what was security, if he loved Chloe for herself or as the friend whose history with him, recent and otherwise, let her stop the memories and the pain. It was unfair to both of them to give in to the moment; it was unfair to Audrey who had waited for him, and it was unfair, most of all, to himself. If he gave into fear again, he would let those who tortured him finally win. A long, exhausted sigh escaped him and he backed away from O'Brian, still with some reluctance. **

"**I'm sorry, Chloe. And I'm sorry if this has been hard for you in a way I didn't consider before we came up here. I was scared, I was desperate. I didn't want Winters messing with my head; I didn't even want to be in it myself but you were the one thing my mind still trusted, the one person who wouldn't be gone. I didn't think all that through then but now I know it was there all along."**

"**I didn't understand everything then either, Jack, just that I owed you my life and yours back and I would have done anything to undo what they did to you. Just taking care of you for a few days didn't seem like much."**

"**I guess it turned out to be a little more than that," he offered, a smile finally returning to his face. **

**O'Brian returned it, realizing only then that she was still holding his hands. "We always end up in a bigger mess than we thought; that's just us." She stood up and backed away from him on the couch, dropping a pillow onto her lap and opening her arms to him one final time. Jack hesitated and then turned, folding his arms around hers as she pulled him against her, for the first time defying the doctor who had put them here and not leaving him alone. She had spent the last two nights in her own room as she'd been told but this was the last night they would spend here, and she wanted the memory of it to last him for the difficult times to come. Winters had told her to follow her instincts at one point and this was one was overwhelming. Jack sensed her thoughts without her voicing them, resting himself against her, holding her arms to himself tightly, imprinting his body and mind with the feel of her, of absolute safety, and slowly falling into a sleep that no nightmare dared test. Tomorrow was still an unknown but it was no longer a place of emptiness and no longer a place of confusion and terror.**

… …

"**I told them to come down separately, Mrs. Raines, Chloe first and then Jack. I want him to spend a little time on his own before he makes the trip down."**

**Audrey Raines nodded distantly, her lips thinned and tense. She hadn't seen Jack in what still felt like months. Their professional relationship had let her rationalize that only O'Brian's voice had reached him during his more violent, incoherent moments in the infirmary but she had yet to understand why she had never received a call to visit with him in the past few weeks, or even received simply a call once he was reportedly functioning again. Winters had given her a dozen reasons and pointed out that only his daughter had been asked for by Bauer, offering the younger woman a quick smile as she did. Kim sat in the chair next to Audrey's, looking no less tense and doubtful. Winters went on to remind the DOD liaison that Martha Logan had been slipped in under the radar and Cassie Gibson had been allowed in to provide her sister what was most likely a much needed break and then reassured Raines that her next line of attack would be to encourage Bauer to resume all of his prior supportive relationships to help him move forward. **

"**Have you told him that you asked me to… take him in?"**

"**No. I want to feel him out, to see if he has any preferences. I'm just assuming you would be the most likely candidate but keep in mind Kim has offered and his desire to rebuild that relationship will be very strong."**

**Audrey nodded again, this time to both the doctor and Bauer's daughter, and folded her arms against her waist, then dragged her hands nervously over her plum-colored suit. "I feel like I'm about to go on a first date with a stranger." She turned to look at Winters this time, vaguely noticing her tailored suit was the same cool color as her eyes. **

"**I understand that. Whatever Jack wants just hear him out. He has to start making his own rules and decisions if he's going to accept and benefit from mine. I've dealt with this before, Mrs. Raines, and the first thing they want back is the sense that they're in control."**

… …

**Chloe O'Brian's hand hesitated over the keypad, her finger lingering over the "7" that would release the door for the last time, that would end their willing exile from the darkness outside while they had dealt with darknesses within. A hand covered her own slowly, warm and slightly calloused and most importantly concealing a new strength that still made her smile. Her finger rested on the final key but it was Jack whose finger moved over her own and pressed it down. The corridor back to CTU came slowly into view before them, lit with the occasional recessed fixture, one over the stairwell and the small elevator several dozen yards in the distance. Chloe turned from the opening and looked up at Bauer one last time. "You'll be fine. Just trust yourself… and if you need me, even if we're not supposed to be in touch…"**

**Jack nodded and took a step closer to her, looking down the open hallway with a calm that amazed him. "That term… 'supposed to', that's for everybody else, Chlo. We prove that."**

**Chloe stood still a moment longer, looking small and worried, but determined. She had intentionally put on something bright, her favorite pink blouse and a pair of white jeans. She looked down at her white trainers until she felt Jack's hands on her shoulders. "Thank you again."**

"**Goes both ways, Jack. I spent a lot of time in my head, too." She stood still for a moment more and then reached up, embracing him more tightly than she had dared in weeks, and incredibly glad for the strength she felt as he returned her embrace and kissed the top her head as she had so often done to him when he was unaware. She lifted her head and he kissed her again, the time on lips but there was no confusion to it, just a fond wish between friends. A moment later she was gone, walking down the long corridor and not looking back. Jack didn't watch her go, could barely hear her footsteps as he leaned against the wall of the corridor. She was out of sight only seconds when he reached over to the outer lock and with a shaking hand entered the code. The door slid closed slowly, sealing him away from the rooms that had been his refuge for so long. It hardly mattered; the greatest protection they had afforded him was already gone.**

**As the door sealed shut, Jack looked at his watch and backed up against the wall, feeling the cold smooth concrete through his pale blue shirt. He let it sink into him, let it distract him, focusing on the cold touch of the wall as he slid down to the floor, his eyes never leaving the second hand as it made its endless circle. **

… …

**There was an elevator. Chloe didn't take it. Instead she was winding her way down the stairs that led from the eighth floor back down to the corridor that would take her to CTU. Her pace slowed as she progressed and she finally stopped altogether three floors from the bottom, sliding down the wall and sitting on the first step, burying her head in her hands for a long moment, wondering why she was worried about the tears when no one could see her, when no one expected her for at least an hour. She and Jack had made their own plans to leave, getting started an hour ahead of schedule so that if either of them needed more time they would have it with no one else aware. Chloe wiped at the tears and reached into her back pocket for the one thing she had carried with her.**

…**. …**

**Cassie Gibson lowered the binoculars from her face and handed them to her partner to reach for her phone. "Alexander Damn Bell. Here, I think I saw something in that third window. Get us out of here if he leaves."**

**The Hispanic man sitting behind the wheel of the gray car took the binoculars from her. "Ring sounds like your sister again."**

"**You got nosy ears, Alavarez.". She smirked then flipped open the phone and slid it under her hair. "Chlo'?"**

**There was a pause on the other end of the phone but Gibson could hear the sound of unsteady breathing. She'd opened her mouth again when Chloe finally spoke. "It's me. Where are you?"**

**Cassie sat up at the tone of her sister's voice, giving her partner a look that instantly told him he was on his own. "San Pedro and Sixth, not far from the Greyhound terminal. Is something wrong? It sounds like you're in a well."**

"**No, something's sort of… right and I'm in a stair-well. I needed some… I don't know. We're leaving the safehouse, me first and then Jack. They're all waiting for us in Winters' office."**

**Cassie absorbed that information with a sigh that betrayed her worry. "You think he's ready?"**

"**Yeah, I guess. We had a long talk last night. I just told him to do what's right for him. That was all he should do."**

"**Yeah, of course. What about you?"**

"**That's crazy. What do you mean me?"**

"**Just wondering if, after all this, you're going to survive… being in an apartment decorated by a C-4 blast." **

**There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment and then a thin, reluctant snort of laughter. "Just what I need, insensitive abuse."**

**Cassie backed the phone up enough to smirk at the mouthpiece in lieu of her sibling. "That is why you called, isn't it?"**

**There was another pause and another trickle of laughter. "Yeah, it is. Thanks."**

"**Anytime, abuse is free except for using my daytime minutes."**

**Chloe gave up another laugh, "I'll call you later, okay? I think I need to get really, really drunk and now it's sort of okay if I end up telling you government secrets."**

"**Don't bother, I keep figuring those out on my own. Call me, Monkey-Butt." Cassie Gibson closed the phone and stared out the window at the white stone high-rise a block off, "Anything?"**

"**Yeah, a stiff neck. Is your sister okay?"**

"**Not really. She's lousy at remembering birthdays and when we were growing up---."**

"**You, always with the joke. You know what I meant."**

**Cassie offered her new partner a dim smile that faded in seconds under the stare of two dark, compassionate eyes. "She's had a weird few weeks at work but it's… they're over… now."**

"**Funny, you sound like they should not be." Enrique Alvarez gave a quick glance to the window they'd been staring at for four hours and then turned back. "You know, they start you off with the easy ones. This will not be going down today."**

**The silence lingered between them, the unspoken offer obvious. "It's not, is it?" The smile that faded from her lips moments before reappeared. "Drop me off at the next precinct. I'll pick up a black and white. And do NOT finish this without me."**

… … …

**Curtis Manning was the first person Chloe saw when she came out of the corridor that went for blocks between CTU and the seemingly abandoned building that held the safehouse. She wondered for a second if he could tell that she'd been crying and then didn't care. Only a non-human would have expected she wouldn't have been crying. He didn't say a word as she approached but offered her a smile that drew one from her in return. **

"**Hey, Curtis."**

"**Hi, you up for some coffee?"**

**She sighed sharply. "Only if it's real. I've been making decaff. But aren't you here to make sure I go talk to Winters?"**

**Curtis hesitated before he did but then took her arm gently and turned her, to her surprise, toward the corridor that would take them out to the motor pool. "Just the opposite, actually. She wants to talk to you, but she said you've done most of your part. She said for you to get outside and get some fresh air. You can debrief her later but I don't think she's expecting you to tell her much."**

**Chloe heaved a sigh of relief and closed her eyes, happy to let Curtis steer as she walked out into the sunlight for the first time in weeks. Curtis bundled her into the driver's seat of his SUV and climbed in the other side. "Starbuck's or The Coffee Beanery?"**

**Chloe didn't move, her face still turned into the sunlight, her eyes closed. She was relieved but now belatedly realized she was also being sent away from Jack. If he was having as great a time walking away from the safehouse as she did… She couldn't think about it, didn't want to focus on the fact that she hadn't been allowed to come down with him but at the same time she understood why. "Whatever's closer, and I want chocolate, a lot of it."**

"**Yes, Ma'am." Curtis started the car and pulled out of the south lot, never seeing the black and white police cruiser that pulled into the east entrance.**

… … …

**Cassie Gibson flashed both her badge and her new CTU ID as she stopped at the East Lot Entry Station, offering her fingerprint to the scanner. The guard gave her an appreciative smile and returned ID card, missing it as she ditched the Post-it note with his phone number stuck to the back of it. Minus three points for originality. She parked the cruiser and stood outside of it, brushing off her black trousers and mumbling curses at whoever was supposed to have detailed the unit as she got rid of the crumbs, finding more on the light tan sleeves of her blouse. Satisfied, she retrieved her matching blazer and headed into the gaping maw of the sealable underground entryway. She passed through another checkpoint and turned in her forgotten back-up piece, the small .22 strapped to her left ankle. **

**There were other doors into CTU, ones above ground and less sinister-looking. She could have used those but this one took her where she wanted the most directly, to the tunnel that led to the safehouse. It was, to her surprise, unguarded and she paused, realizing she hadn't seen a soul since she'd been in the hallway. She checked her cell phone for the time and then checked the time of Chloe's call. Twenty minutes hadn't passed since she got here, well, allowing for the siren blast that had cut her way through the late morning traffic. Frowning, she took one glance back at the empty corridor, hearing a few distant male voices and a dozen small electronic beeps, muffled and orderly. Sighing, she turned back to the blocks-long corridor and jogged down it, picking up speed until she got to the first set of stairs that led up to the subbasement. She didn't give the elevator a second look but instead headed up the stairs at a slower clip, wanting to give her sister's frayed nerves plenty of warning when she approached.**

**Three flights up she came to a stop, her upward, now dark-adapted gaze catching a change in the light when she was two floors away. She stood silently in the semi-dark, looking up the angled stairways and narrowing her gaze on the blockage of light. A few steps further she realized it was not her sister who was sitting near the inside railing on the top step but Jack Bauer. He wasn't moving. As near as she could tell from this angle, he was sitting hunched over, his head resting on his crossed arms as they draped over his knees. Gibson retreated a few steps, thinking quickly, wondering if she should approach him or let him sort this out for himself. Minutes passed as she stood silent and undetected, minutes during which she saw no movement from the man her sister had watched over so carefully for so long. His very immobility made up her mind, made her recall what she had learned of balance, of karma, of yin and yang, of unexpected opportunities. Gibson retreated down the rest of the stairs on which she'd paused and then started back up them, her footsteps this time sounding gently off the walls. Jack's head lifted as she reached the landing below him and his eyes took several seconds to focus on her. Recognition came instantly. She could see him relax as he offered her a weak smile. **

"**Hi."**

**Cassie stopped at the foot of the stairs, reflecting the smile and meeting his eyes. "Hi." **

**Jack folded his arms more tightly but sat up a bit straighter under her direct and calm gaze. "I guess you're wondering what the hell I'm doing here."**

"**It's still CTU territory, Jack. You should be wondering what I'm doing here."**

"**Should I? I thought you were the liaison for LAPD now." His eyes focused on her more clearly but Gibson held back a moment, watching him carefully before she shrugged.**

"**I am and I have to talk to you about that. Mind some company?"**

**A brief expression of confusion touched on Bauer's face, followed by a distant resignation. "No, but I'm not supposed to have any on this trip. I get the feeling, though, that no one knows you're around."**

**Cassie grabbed the railing and started slowly up the steps, not going up to the landing but stopping a few steps below Bauer and settling on the stairs. "Oh, you'll make this trip on your own. I just wanted a chance to thank you and, no matter what my uptight sister thinks, apologize. Maybe when I'm done making an ass of myself we'll see if we can make the décor in this hallway a little less fascinating."**

**Jack looked down at her with grateful distraction and distant curiosity, "I'm listening."**

"**Good because it's not everyday I admit what a jerk I can be. You're a privileged audience." Cassie leaned back against the railing behind her, the one through which she'd seen him two floors down, and glanced up at him sideways. Maybe it was because she was sitting underneath him but his eyes were still on her. "When I first came up here a while ago, for once in my life I didn't know what to say, not to you. I just knew you'd been through some… unimaginable hell and that you were the man my sister seemed to think could do absolutely anything, and that was from a woman so good at inflicting doubt she could make the Pope check if he was Catholic." Cassie looked up then and Bauer did look away but only for a second; he allowed Chloe to believe in him maybe but no one else.**

"**Anyway, I remembered she told me you were S.W.A.T here in the city a while back, so I rattled off the first thing I could think of to her and then to you, that CTU might be able to use an liaison with the department. The next thing I knew you were there in it with me and the next thing I knew downstairs Curtis and Bill were all over me and when I went back my division chief was, too, but he's got plans to be a politician not a cop, so he was happy to dump it back in my lap and get out of the real work. After my connection to Chloe and how easy that made the background check, that was the third reason a brand new first year detective suddenly found herself in the big leagues. So, I'm still working on whether I should thank you or choke you for jumping on the idea."**

**Jack shrugged the shoulder not against the railing. "We call you in a lot, for containment, to hold off traffic or just to get out of the area if we don't want to tip someone off that anyone could be a threat. Someone who could interface our protocols should have been there before now. I would try but it's been a while. I don't know where the jurisdictions are exactly now and the people I would have known to call are gone. It made a lot of sense even if you didn't know it."**

**Gibson gave him a familiar twisting smile. "From the mouths of a "Bashed-Up Babes" cover girl, right? So, anyhow, that's how I got into this mess and got my magic phone and my decoder ring and, best of all, access to your firing range so I could play with the grown up toys. I'm glad I'm not here all the time, I would be dangerous." She grinned up at him for a moment and then sobered, "Which brings me to the apology part." It was Gibson's turn to look away, her now dark green eyes, with their usually direct gaze darting off into a corner for a moment while she composed her thoughts. **

"**I know that, love her or hate her for it, my honest-to-a-fault sister told you I gave Audrey Raines a photo of you that was…, well, I guess the politically correct term would be "compromising". I didn't know Audrey, I didn't know you; the only thing that was on my mind was Chloe, how she changed when she found you. She didn't say a word but she went back to "incredibly difficult" from "impossible" and as little as we used to communicate, I could see something was off of her." Cassie stopped talking, looking up at Bauer and running a hand over her darkened eyes. He didn't react that she could see at first in the dim light but after a moment an expression she couldn't define touched his face and what he was feeling she couldn't guess. Watching him, however, she suddenly had the feeling they were things on which he didn't need to dwell, at least not now. Enough was on his mind. **

**Looking away from him, Gibson plunged forward, hoping he hadn't noticed her scrutiny. "I got a few clues I shouldn't have thanks to a screw-up with the insurance papers and I figured out she was with you and used my well-armed mouth to bully my way in here to make sure Chloe was really all right. When Winters told me what was going on… I exhibited what I believe is commonly referred to as "excruciatingly bad judgment" as far as you're concerned most of all and probably everybody else. I apologized to Audrey, by the way."**

**Jack sat perfectly still for a moment and then nodded. "I knew and I didn't even do that. Chloe gave me her phone, told me to call Audrey. I don't know why I didn't, not really. She lied to me about something important once and I don't think I've ever forgiven her for that or what I had to do to get the truth."**

**Gibson sighed and buried her face in her hands for a moment then looked up at him with an expression of pure humility. "… and Chloe told me that you told her to forgive me, so I owe you another load of thanks along with that apology. I am sorry, Jack, I shouldn't have done that to Audrey, or you, or Chloe."**

**Jack nodded and offered her a small smile after several seconds had passed, his gaze suddenly was vacant and somewhere over her head. "Accepted. You… you made a mistake because you love your sister. When you make a mistake because you love someone, people should forgive you."**

**Cassie Gibson didn't need to be a detective to know he was no longer speaking about her own stupidity and she began to hear it again, that little demonic voice in the back of her mind that she never failed to heed despite the consequences. Another part of her mind began planning the next talk she might have with Kimberly Bauer. Gibson looked back up at man sitting above her and raised her voice to break his reverie. 'Yeah, they should; you're right."**

**Jack focused on her again, picking up where he had left off . "And you knew why Audrey wasn't here. I overheard Chloe's end of your first call."**

**Cassie drew her legs back under her slowly and then finished climbing up the stairs, sitting next to him on the landing but not touching him. "You know… there's a second reason I dragged all that up, not just to have a self-pitying, private whine and cheesy excuse festival and beg your forgiveness. Confusing as it might be… and I've added to that I know… you have a life to get back to and a lot of people who want to see you again, who care about you even if they don't know how to do it."**

**Jack turned to look at Cassie Gibson with a look of mild suspicion. "Did Chloe send you up here?"**

"**No, I came looking for her. She called me from this very stairwell about an hour ago. She sounded a little rattled. I ditched a dead-end stake out and took a black-and-white over here. I got wondering what the hell was going on when I found the corridor to here unguarded so I headed up. Chloe must have pulled herself together and took off. When I saw you, I confess, I watched you for a long time, and when I realized your needle was stuck, I couldn't help sticking my nose in." Gibson turned then, facing his profile as he sat slightly hunched over, staring down the dim flight of concrete steps. "Any reason in particular you stopped?"**

"**Yeah, all those people you say are waiting for me, I … I don't want to disappoint them."**

**Cassie bit off the breath she was taking and backed away from him a bit, considering her next words carefully and stunned that he had been so frank with her so fast. "You'll only disappoint them if you don't show up. You know that, don't you, Kiddo?"**

"**Yeah."**

"**So, how does disappoint come into it?"**

"**I'm just… I'm going to hurt somebody no matter what I do. I know I can't stay with Chloe. I can't ask that much of her and we talked last night for a long time. It'd be unfair to both of us but Audrey, I don't know what I feel now. She hates what I do and now it's part of who I am even more. I literally had it cut into me." He turned to look at Gibson as the harsh words left his mouth but her expression was calm and patient, most importantly unflinching. He kept his eyes on her and continued, "My daughter, I don't want her to see the same things. She's got no reason to have to face this."**

**Gibson took another breath to steel herself and leaned forward, taking hold of Bauer's arm and turning him toward her. He followed her direction with little encouragement, catching her slightly by surprise, however, when he suddenly placed his left arm on the leg she had folded beneath her, braced as if she were about to draw blood. With no context to understand, she was left with only instinct; Gibson let her hand slowly fall onto his arm and saw him relax just a bit immediately. She gave no sign that she noticed. "Jack, I talked to Kim. She loves you very much and she may face this with you one day but if you're not ready for her to deal with this, it doesn't matter if she is or not." **

**Jack nodded and an expression of dull relief crossed his face at her understanding. "I guess you didn't go home to your mother after you'd taken that beating."**

"**No, and I have the perfect job for excuses." She looked away, shaken and honored both by the expression of emerging trust that she saw on the blond man's face. When she looked back his eyes were still on her and under his gaze, the solution suddenly came to her, or what she thought it might be. "And I also have the perfect excuse for you for a few other things… You can tell me to go to hell – course you'll have to stand in line – or it might just be the best way out of this for a few days. It'll get you back in the world, back in circulation, back here when Winters wants you, and you could get some real work done when you're ready for it. Come stay at my place. I have the room and I'm a cop. You'll have more privacy because they won't need to put anyone inside, plus I've got a lot to learn about CTU, and I'm not far from here… and after my little pilgrimage to purgatory for you… I've got no baggage and you don't have to worry about what you do and don't want to tell me."**

**Bauer sat up slowly, a guarded expression of relief on his face that belied his words. "I… couldn't ask you to do that. I wouldn't want to impose."**

**She grinned and stood up, absently and easily pulling him to his feet and then letting him go. "Jack, do I seem like the kind of person who finds anyone imposing?" **

**He stood still for a moment, holding onto the railing. "I think right now, not a lot of people would find me imposing like that."**

**Gibson sighed quickly and gave him a quick sweep with her most critical eye. "We'll take care of that, too, if you're ready." She turned and in a flash had descended the stairs to the next level. She looked back up and waited a moment before looking Bauer in the eye. "You're a pilot, did I hear that from right Mon—Chloe?"**

**Jack stood still yet, looking down at her and reaching for the railing to steady himself. "Yeah, helicopters mostly."**

"**Well, then you already know what I'm about to tell you. It's a good thing to walk away from a landing." She grinned up at him and saw the ghost of a smile now on his lips. She waited a moment longer, following his footstep as he made the first move downward. He paused there for a moment and looked away from her, gathering his nerve for the next step. He missed the spark in Gibson's eye as she looked away from him and then suddenly threw her arms up in the air. "Damn it, Jack Bauer, do not make me come up there and get you." Shaking her head, she made a charge onto the first step and a split second later, off balance, was falling backward, hitting the ground and rolling hard as she sucked in a sharp breath. **

**Jack was down the stairs and beside her in a moment, kneeling down and holding her to keep her from moving. "Are you all right?" He demanded, alarmed and breathing a bit heavily himself. **

"**Unless you count being duplicitous and manipulative as bad things. Let me up, Grasshopper. The first thing they teach you in karate is… how to fall down."**

**Jack sat back on his heels and after a few seconds of shock found himself laughing. Cassie Gibson was gone when opened his eyes and finally stood up , making his way down the rest of the stairwell. He found her waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, slouched against the wall and rubbing at a bruise she'd nonetheless earned despite her skill. Ten minutes later they had made their way through CTU to Medical, Jack nodding and smiling but saying nothing to the co-workers who recognized him, tolerating their stares and silent questions until he opened the door to Gwen Winters' office and stood silently, his eyes not daring to meet Audrey's for several seconds until she stood and took a step toward him. **

"**Jack?"**

"**Audrey, I'm sorry I haven't talked to you. I … there was a lot I had to deal with… things I found out."**

**Raines looked away from him, swallowing at her discomfort. She didn't feel like she'd thought. He was in the room with her for the first time in weeks and suddenly she felt he was even farther away. "It's all right, Jack. I respect that." **

**Not understand… the word not there was nevertheless not lost. "We'll talk about that. I guess I'll have a lot of talking to do." He offered her a nervous smile and then his gaze traveled with no small amount of angst to Kim and finally to Gwen Winters. She had remained seated at her desk, hiding the smile she wanted to give Bauer beneath a clinical one of approval.**

"**Yeah, Jack we will but right now I think we need to talk about where you'll be staying while we finish up here. It'll just be for a few weeks. Kim and Audrey have both offered to have you come back with them. They're both fine with whomever you chose. Once we know I'll go over a few things with both of you, just a couple of guidelines to help you reintegrate there and back here when you're ready. We're going to meet with Bill Buchanan tomorrow, okay?"**

"**Sure." Jack looked uncomfortably between the two women on the other side of Winters' desk and then at the wall between them. "I don't think I'm going to say what you think and I hope everyone understands. I've had an offer that made things a little easier. I don't want… I don't want to complicate things or disappoint either of you. I hope, Doctor, what I'm about to ask is all right." He stopped then and gave up for a moment, relieved when Cassie Gibson slid into the room behind him and met the eyes of the others, yet wondering more than anything what the hell her sister was going to say.**

"**Uh, there's been little change in what I guess were the possible plans here, everyone. Jack would like to stay with me for a few days at least. I have the room. I don't live far from here and Jack thinks it would be a little simpler for everyone." She finished with an expression on her face that she'd seen on the guys diffusing bombs, her eyes zeroing in on Gwen Winters and not daring to go in the direction of Audrey Raines. The DOD liaison, however, was staring at Jack knowing he wasn't about to return the action… and in that moment, Audrey knew it made a frustrating sort of sense, a thought confirmed a few seconds later when Gwen Winters surveyed the room coolly and focused her gaze on Jack.**

"**All right, I think that's fine. Jack, look at me. Look at me. Is this what you want?"**

**His voice was little more than a whisper as he met her eyes but the tone was firm. 'Yes."**

"**Okay, great. I'll just see you two for few minutes and then you make some security arrangements with Curtis and get going." It was a dismissal to Kim and Audrey as much as anything else. Kim stood up and quickly hugged her father good-bye, trading a few comforting words with him and a final fierce kiss that left both with tears in their eyes. By contrast, Audrey's parting was little more than a perfunctory grip but she stood on her toes for long enough to kiss his forehead and then slip out the door. Jack didn't turn to watch her go, his eyes on the lanky figure of Cassie Gibson as she shut the door, sat down, and patted the chair next to her own, wearing what she hoped was her most infectious grin to cover up the fact she didn't know what the hell she'd just done.**

"**Come on, Jack, we'll finish up with Doc' and then I'll take you for a ride in a real police car."**


	20. Chapter 20

Jack Bauer stopped as he reached the glass door that led out into the crowded parking lot, feeling the warmth of the afternoon sun that lay in bent rectangles on the gray tile floor. Gibson stopped behind him, expecting the delay and slightly shifting her grip on the two heavy suitcases. Bauer rested his hand on the glass then tilted his head back slightly. "Are you…?" He stopped himself, shaking his head. "Never mind. I'm being foolish."

Cassie smiled to herself and dropped the smaller of the two bags, pushing it toward him with her foot. "If you carry the other bag, I've got a .22."

Bauer didn't say a word, merely entered his code into the door lock, picked up the second bag she dropped and slid toward him. He stepped slowly into the sunlight as the doors opened. He knew where to go without her saying a word, heading toward the police cruiser nearly halfway across the lot. Two large black SUVs were idling in the row facing it. Gibson fumbled for the keys and opened the trunk, hefting the suitcases into it and slamming it shut.

Jack looked over the hood of the car as she did and gave a quick nod of thanks to the eight heavily-armed personnel who would be following them and establishing an invisible perimeter around Gibson's apartment. It would be the last time he had the chance to acknowledge them. Karen Hayes and Secretary Heller all but had the threat that the Chinese would interfere with Bauer again under control but a small chance remained while the ones who had been captured awaited trial and extradition, likely to the same prison where Jack would have been taken. In the eyes of their masters they were now shamed by their failure to hide from CTU and fight off the American attack that had freed him. Irony was a cruel mistress.

Jack looked down at the radio that crackled to life as soon as the engine started. "…units in the vicinity of La Cienega respond. Suspect is now on foot, possibly armed. Caucasian male, blond, approximately five-six, two-hundred eighty pounds wearing---."

Gibson turned the volume down to nearly nothing. "Well, the next call there will be Medi-evac."

Jack shook his head and smiled thinly as he very slowly swung the dashboard mounted laptop out of the way and folded it down, resting his hand upon it with a pensive and distant expression. "A lot's changed since I was last in one of these."

Gibson glared at the laptop folded between them on the swing arm as she slid the key into the ignition. 'I hate that damn thing. Let's add a computer to all the reasons to break into a police car." At his look of confusion she went on. "Well, they can't use them; they take them for parts." Jack nodded as she started the car and pulled clear of the parking lot, his eyes not looking forward but at the rear view mirror where he could watch the two SUVs trail after them and then stop, letting her get a good lead before pulling out into the early afternoon traffic.

Bauer looked upward as he lost sight of the tag vehicles; someone at CTU would be watching them, probably the woman serving in Chloe's place. He would have felt a little bit safer if ---.

"Jack, did you want to stop anywhere before we get where we're going?"

Bauer's right hand tightened on the window frame. "No, but I know this was all pretty sudden… if… if you need to, we can. Just make sure you tell the units behind us."

Gibson shook her head. "I'll need to take this car back and pick up mine if they're done with it. One of the guys at the motor pool was tuning it up. If I need anything at home I'll send one of the kids out for it. Don't worry, not mine. You'll see."

They rode ten minutes more after a quick change of vehicles, Gibson chattily pointing out the things she missed most about driving a black and white, the offenses that ended once it was in sight, traffic laws obeyed in a screech of brakes, prostitutes who vanished around corners. For the moment the half-dozen violations they saw in progress were someone else's concern.

Gibson finally pulled through the gate of a fair-sized apartment building and headed down into the parking garage, stopping the car where a large number "2" was painted on the wall. She retrieved her service weapon, checked it, and tucked it back under her arm.

Jack followed her numbly as she entered the building access code and they climbed the four short flights of stairs. He carried the smallest suitcase in one hand and held onto the railing with the other. It was only halfway through the afternoon and he sighed with impatient frustration as he realized he was already exhausted. Jack was denied a quick entry into the apartment, however, as Gibson was beset upon a flock of three children when they emerged onto the second floor, a two African American boys and a Latin girl, all between 8 and 11.

"Officer Cassie," one of the boys called.

"Detective Cassie," the taller girl corrected, speaking to whichever of the boys running toward them had spoken. The shorter of the boys took the biggest suitcase from Gibson's hand in both of his as the girl spoke again. "Do you have time to teach us today? You've been gone so much and now you're here early."

Cassie stopped in front of the farthest door down. "I'm sorry, Honey, I can't yet. I'll make it up to all of you, and I'll need you to run some errands for me soon. Jamal, tell your mom I'll get Todomachi a little later."

The shorter boy nodded and although all three children looked disappointed they nodded and vanished in a blur of waved hands. Gibson waved weakly after them and opened the door, kicking in the suitcases and standing back to usher Jack through as she entered her code to silence the droning security system. It was dark inside, the vertical blinds drawn shut, no lights on save a yellowish blur two rooms back. Jack stopped in the middle of the floor and she turned on the nearest lamp.

"They're on a timer with the security system," she explained. "This is it. I hope you're into camping."

Looking around in the sudden light, Jack knew what she meant immediately. The wall-to-wall carpeting was a deep intense green, the ceiling a pale shade of blue and around the midsize living room there were six fake potted trees. The walls were a pale off-white, the wood-trimmed furniture a soft tan. The only thing out of motif was the television and the accompanying equipment but it also was in a natural wood frame.

What he could see of the rest of the place through the open doors seemed remarkably the same. Only one door was, in fact, closed. Jack found himself smiling where he stood. "This is nice. It's peaceful in here."

"Just a coincidence, I promise. I did not send an emergency redecorating squad in just to make it peaceful for you. I have to have my little retreat, too. The best part is if some idiot brings roaches into the building, they look in here, think they went back outside and leave."

Jack stared at her, too tired for a second to understand she was once again joking, and then smiled. "Sorry."

Cassie bit her tongue and shook her head. "Sit down, Jack. I'll get this stuff in the guest room and be back in a second." When she returned it was with coffee, decaffeinated, and sat down facing him on the sofa. "I know you're tired and I know this is weird, probably weirder than going to ground with Mon-Chloe but it seemed to make a crazy sort of sense when I opened my mouth, but … then we also know I'm not a great judge of that sometimes. So, if you want to forget this at any point, you just tell me and I'll take you to your daughter or Audrey or whoever."

Jack nodded and stared down into the dark pool of the coffee. He could deal better with the intuitive Cassie Gibson than the one who rattled off one-liners faster than his mind could catch them right now. "No, I appreciate this and I'm… I'm comfortable with you; that doesn't happen much, not this fast. Just bear with me if I'm a little slow on the listening part."

"No problem and just make yourself at home. There is, however, one thing I really need to say to you before you get settled in and unpacked." Her bantering tone had vanished completely and in its place was one tainted with the slow care of someone offering up an uncomfortable secret. "I don't want you to feel like I've done something else to manipulate you, even for your own benefit. Falling down stairs tripping over your own tongue is not an acceptable tactic. Neither is playing with your head now. That's Winters' job and as far as I know but relax, I'm not some closet maniac. Did you hear the kids ask if I could teach them today?"

Bauer looked at her, suddenly now tense regardless of her instruction. "Yes."

"They come over once a week or so and I teach them karate. In return, they bring the paper up, run my errands, do most of the cleaning here, and look after Todomachi for me if I'm gone for too long. It keeps me from taking for granted anything I've learned and I know I'm sending them out in the world a little safer."

Jack, now slightly on guard, held her gaze, smiling fractionally. "That's a great way to look at things."

"They're not the only people I teach though." She paused and took a breath, stealing herself more than when she had confessed to him about giving Audrey the photo of him asleep in Chloe's embrace. "In my time as a cop, Jack, I've worked in the nastiest places this city has to offer, my choice, because the first place they stuck me was where I spent all night arraigning drugged up rich idiots who walked out the next day on bail or on the arm of a lawyer who was sure I'd harassed his client. I begged them for a transfer and when I accepted the South Central graveyard shift, they almost sent me for evaluation. I'm making the difference I want to make, though. For seven years, my life has been domestic incidents, drug dealers, gang fights, vice operations, gun battles, dead kids and not long ago, a stabbed partner before I got off the beat."

Jack looked at her with sympathy behind the new apprehension. "That's how you got hurt?"

"Oh well, I got hurt because I should have made him wait till I'd finished running the plates. They wouldn't have tried that with two of us there. I was pushing buttons on a damn computer and he was alone." She shook her head and reclaimed her train of thought. "Anyhow, this job, sometimes it's different when you're a woman, better in one way; once they're safe, once I've made them smile or laugh a few times, people share things with me that they don't share with the guys, sometimes not even the social workers. All they see then is some person in a suit, not someone they see in their neighborhood everyday, who knows what it is, how bad it can be. Women open up to me, sometimes because I'm a woman, men because they're not afraid of looking like less to another man. Sometimes they do it, Jack, because I tell them I've been a victim, too, and I think I pushed you tonight because I have this overwhelming need to fix everybody and everything. I feel like I bullied you when you neither of us might have been thinking straight."

Jack straightened from where he'd been sitting forward, listening to her with growing confusion, unsure if was just relieved or was too tired to sort it all out. "I wasn't but you only offered me a way out of a decision I couldn't make. Chloe did a hell of a job getting me back on my feet. If it was just me I was coming down for, I could have made it. I only stopped because I knew I was coming down to choose between a daughter whose mother I got killed and who's lost a father twice and a woman I'm supposed to love who hates my life… and now I'll never be rid of the darkest part of it. I can't ask either of them to understand that now."

Cassie backed away from him a little, giving herself space to control her own reaction and wondering again if her capacity to interfere had overstepped its bounds. She wanted to reach out to him but knew his vulnerability would also be creating boundaries her brief, if intense, acquaintance was not entitled to breach. "Okay, I just wanted to be sure of what I thought I was hearing. Thinking you know everything usually leads to finding out you don't." She relaxed a bit again when she saw the smile come to his face and then suddenly fade.

"Wait a minute, what did you mean, you'd been a victim, too?"

Gibson drew her lower lip between her teeth and leaned back toward him. "Gee, you're late… I usually have to tell the 'How the funny girl became a cop' story ten minutes after I meet most men."

Jack offered her a thin smile. "What happened?"

Gibson took another breath and drew herself up as well, saw that he'd regrouped himself the moment his focus was on someone else's painful past. "From the top? It was about fifteen years ago. Chlo' met some hippie computer professor who announced he was doing a seminar up in the woods in Griffith Park and she wanted up there like nobody's business. She asked me to go with her because she knew she was going to be the only girl otherwise, so I went and sat there while they all spoke Martian. After about two hours we both realized none of them seemed to actually know she was a girl anyway. I told her I was leaving for a little while; I was going to walk up to the ranger station, get some drinks. She didn't realize when I left; to this day she swears if she had she would have known I was gone too long."

Jack relaxed again as his focus narrowed, relaxed enough to know that she was regaining the hard-won trust. "You were attacked?"

"Yeah, in the deepest part of the woods. I still don't know where he came from. I hit the ground and this man was on top of me. I went down on my back on a rock and I was in so much pain I couldn't speak or move and then when I could I screamed and I fought but it was before I knew how. He had a hundred pounds on me easy. He'd ripped off my blouse. He had one of his hands pulling down my pants; he'd almost choked me out with the other one. ...and I couldn't do a damn thing." The touch of anger that came back to voice was real but it stilled in seconds and she latched onto the flicker of sympathy in Bauer's eyes.

"I was almost out, had accepted what was about to happen and just wanted to live, and then I heard what I thought was a tree branch crack, and suddenly this S.O.B. weighed about a ton and he wasn't moving. Then I realized I was covered in blood and the adrenalin let me push him off. The first thing I saw when I stood up was a cop ...and the first thing I thought was 'Never again'."

Jack started to look away from the woman in front of him but stopped, seeing her soul was almost as bare as his had been to Chloe's but it was a soul secure in its exposure. He could only return the favor of her revelation by taking her hand. "I'm sorry."

Cassie returned his grip and covered his hand with her other one. "I'm not, not now. I'm grateful to that dead ape because three years later, I was a rookie, and that man who shot Kong was my partner." She smiled slowly and gratefully at the memory. More to rid herself of the irritation, not the embarrassment, Cassie wiped a sudden smattering of tears from her eyes. "Inside of a year, Norm lost his wife to a boring accountant and his son to a drive-by; I couldn't fix that, but that talk we had in the stairwell… I'd had it a few times already."

Jack sighed quietly, remembering the dark moments before it had occurred. "You said all the things I kept trying to tell myself. I just wasn't having a lot of respect for my opinion."

"Well, that'll change because I guess all I did was tell you were right." She gave him another smile that was almost as wide as the usual one but it faded slowly. "For now the only thing I'm still sorry about is that Chloe blames herself that I got attacked, as if she could have done anything in time, and she blames herself that I'm a cop. I guess I also hate the fact that she won't understand that I love it, so until the past few weeks, we avoided each other and bickered when we couldn't. But I think working at CTU, she accepts it now."

Jack's did look down then, away from her calm and steady gaze. "I'm glad things are better for you both."

"So I am. So, here's the deal, if it's what you want, I'm willing to try and help you. I think it's why I had to crazy impulse to ask you here. I've worked with community outreach programs, Jack. I've taught self-defense to assault victims on occasion and what I learned is that it's not so much that they know the physical aspect of it, but that they know they know it that makes a difference. You can handle yourself, Jack, I know that. You don't need me to teach you to fight; but maybe I can help you remember you can."

Jack nodded and relaxed once more, letting go of any doubt her revelation had left. "I think I want take you up on that."

Cassie let go of his one hand only long enough to take hold of both. "One condition, we do this slowly because your situation is a little different than a mugging or a domestic. And now that you know how I ended up with a shield, I need to ask something of you. If, probably when, this job ever kills me, you have to make my sister understand that it's not her fault. You are the only person who ever could."

Jack met Gibson's eyes unflinchingly and brought their joined hands up between them. "You have my word."

Gibson smiled again as the breath left her body at the same time the world left her shoulders. "Thank you and before we find something else to purge ourselves of, you very badly need some rest and I need to make a few more arrangements."

Jack nodded and left for the guest room, finding much the same décor there but with reasonable room for only a pair of amazingly faked maple saplings framing the door to a small guest bathroom. As the guest room was placed against the inner wall, there were no windows. Ten minutes after he went into the room he was pulling the dark brown covers over himself and settling down. Ten minutes of staring at the pale blue ceiling after that, a polite knock sounded at the dark wooden door. "Jack?"

He sat up, propping himself on his side. "Come in."

Gibson opened the door and walked over to the bed, a cup of warm tea in her hand, a tamer version of her usual bravado back in her eye. 'You've had a hell of a day, Jack, and it's the first one you're spending away from the safehouse and away from Mon-my… my sister. I just thought, if you want, I could stay until you get to sleep." She watched him without expression, not moving to sit down until he nodded and offered her a crooked smile. Saying nothing more, she handed him the tea and settled down in the chair near the bed, rescuing the cup when he drifted off a few minutes later. She sat ten minutes more as he slept and then went to the smallest of the cases containing his clothes and a few other items, retrieving from it the file that Winters had sent with them.

…

"Agent O'Brian – Chloe."

The woman called looked up from her computer and scowled involuntarily when she saw Gwen Winters. "I'm kind of busy. If I'm supposed to I'll talk to you, can we do it later?"

"And will I get any more out of you then?" Winters offered a smile she knew O'Brian would find infuriating because any expression she offered would probably have done the same. "Believe it or not, Chloe, I don't want to talk to you until… maybe even unless, you want to talk to me."

Chloe sighed and glanced around CTU. It was her first day back here, the first day after her departure from the safehouse, the first day of smiles and stares that she was surprised to realize were grateful and sympathetic. "If I think of anything you should know, I'll tell you but I did my part, okay? Anything you want to know about Jack, you ask Jack."

"I will, but I may need your help with that yet."

Chloe looked up then, her hands absently putting the computer into a secure hibernate mode. She stood up and circled down out of her station, stalking into the nearest darkened corridor, her back issuing a brusque although unspoken invitation to follow. She turned to find Winters behind her, her hands clasped over her thighs. She was wearing a dark suit whose buttons gleamed in the dim overhead light. Chloe huffed a single breath and looked up at the camera even she wasn't supposed to know was there. "What are you talking about?"

"In a couple of weeks, after he's had time to get used to the world outside of the isolated one we created, I want a doctor to look at him. It might be best if you're there. It would be the closest return to an environment where he was tortured but it's unavoidable."

Chloe relaxed slightly. "If he wants that, I'll be there."

Winters nodded and rocked once on her heels, "You haven't asked where Jack went. In fact you've avoided me and probably anyone who had any business to know I assume. I thought you'd be interested to know."

Chloe glared at the blond woman for a moment while she chose her words, "I did what you asked. I did what Jack needed. I don't regret it and I'm glad he came down on his own. It's not often being around me does someone any good but then I already spouted that off at you. As long as Jack is safe and he's getting better, that's all I care about."

"Chloe, I think you'll want to know this. You trusted me when I asked you to do this for Jack, just trust me for a second now and I think you'll be very relieved that Jack is safe."

The snapped reply was held in check, and O'Brian's curiosity got the better of her after a few seconds. "Did he go home with Curtis?"

"No, I hadn't thought about asking him that because I had two other willing candidates but Jack had a third offer and he came to his own decision. I found it a reasonable alternative and one that doesn't hold any complicated ties." Winters paused, realizing the explanations and rationalizations were frustrating her former facilitator. "Chloe, Jack went home with your sister."

Out of all the reactions Winters expected, a look of disbelieving horror wasn't amongst them. "What? You let him? Are you insane?"

Gwen Winters was accustomed to upset people, even when she upset them herself, but the look of incredulity on O'Brian's face caught the doctor off-guard. It remained on the analyst's face as she was herded farther down the corridor and further out of vocal range of her co-workers. "I thought you'd be pleased," Winters offered as they stopped, several yards of concrete on either side of them.

"Have you ever been around my sister, Doctor? She's loud, she's crazy, she's pushy, she's looking for the next joke so hard she doesn't know what she's saying when she does talk. She's loves yanking people's chains and sometimes she doesn't look back to see where they landed."

"And you think she'll do that with Jack?"

O'Brian took a breath to answer and felt her jaw stay open. She swallowed and looked at the concrete in every direction, finally rolling her eyes at the tiny strip lights around them. "No. She doesn't treat Jack like that, at least she never has when I've been around her but if… Damn, what made her offer to take him?"

"I don't know exactly but she wasn't far behind him when he came---."

"She went up there to look for me. I called her… I called her when I was on my down. I was kind of upset, if you want to write that down, and I was worried about Jack."

"… but you knew he'd be all right, so you came down?"

"Yeah, I did, so I picked myself---," Chloe stopped talking for a moment and glared at Winters. "Okay fine, yeah, I knew. She must've come looking for me and found him on the way down."

"I told you to leave an hour beforehand, counting from the time your keycard says you left with Curtis you must have left earlier than I instructed."

O'Brian glared an involuntary "yes" at her and the doctor gave another thin smile. "She seems to have had quite a talk with him then. I can't say I totally approve but she's a very perceptive person."

Chloe gave the doctor a blank look. "Oh, she can tell you everything you want to hear about yourself. She should get a crystal ball and head over to Venice Beach."

"And I'm sure she's told you a few things over the years but I think you should know, Chloe, that the reason I didn't pull you and Jack back down here after he ran comms on Agent Griffin was because of your sister's feedback and analysis. It made me think that what happened was part of his progress and that effect was doubled when Agent Griffin succeeded."

"I warned him I couldn't cut that off before it went hot if something happened."

"It's all right, Chloe, I know, and in the long run, it wasn't a bad thing. I'm sure it made Jack feel like himself again."

"Yeah, he said as much." The guarded look returned to her face in a moment but Winters had already looked away.

"What about you, are you feeling like yourself again?"

"I'm fine; I can do my job."

"I didn't ask if you were fine, Chloe. I have a responsibility to you, too. I was asking how you felt."

"That's nice, and I'm fine, just a little trapped right now."

Winters shook her head and fell back a few steps, lowering her face partially into both hands as O'Brian stepped past but then suddenly stopped and looked back. "You did the right thing for Jack. After what happened, that's all that matters. Don't beat yourself up over me. I went up there to be his friend, not to be anything else and you know that or you wouldn't have asked me."

"You are entitled to a little confusion, Chloe, after the level of dependence you and he had to cope with. I just want you to know I'll be glad to help or someone will. I might not be the best person for you to confide in now."

Chloe flicked her expressive eyes at the ceiling and looked as far down the corridor as she could. "I have news for you; the best person for me to confide in is usually nobody. Tell me if Jack needs me. I'll be there."


	21. Chapter 21

Ch. 21

"Fine. I don't care. Just send them over. He's not going to tell us anything until we can drag someone else in and pretend they gave him up." Gibson snorted into the phone, "Or I could offer him a night he won't forget until he meets his new boyfriend in lock-up." She cut her own laugh off at the sound of the shower in the guest room, then stood to retrieve a fresh plate. "I have to run and don't send me a file that's too big, it might not make it through all the new security on my computer. … I don't know. I told them who my server was and CTU did whatever at their end. Later, Partner." Gibson slapped the cell phone shut and clipped it to the belt string of her LAPD issue sweat pants, walking out to fuss over the stove briefly and returning to the table in the small dining room with a plate containing two perfectly poached eggs and a cup of black coffee. She put them down next to the plate of fresh fruit and picked up the report that she'd been scanning, sliding the silver-framed reading glasses down her nose just a bit. She didn't need them, she'd just been at this so long it was more comfortable with them. With a twitch of her lips she dropped the profile and guidelines that Gwen Winters had sent back with them onto the seat of the chair beside her, putting it out of sight just in time for Jack to emerge from the guest room, wearing sweats himself and a thin gray T-shirt, his hair wet but not dripping.

He sat down before the plate on the opposite side of the table and caught Gibson's eye as she looked up. "Good morning. You didn't need to go to any trouble."

"Trouble? Oh, poached eggs? Unlike my sister, I have the fire department on speed dial only for professional reasons. It wasn't any trouble. I ask too much of my body not to know how to cook real food. Does CTU have a narco division?"

"Not as such. We track some of the funding because we know a good percentage of it ends up in the hands of arms dealers." Bauer watched the blond woman nod at his answer and returned to finishing breakfast, picking up the coffee last and relieved to find that it was caffeinated. He took a long drag of it and rubbed his hand across his face. "It's odd; I never sleep somewhere strange that well."

"Apparently you do with a system full of chamomile and valerian." She bit her lip at the look on his face and shrugged. "Not Valium… valerian. It's an herb, harmless, non-addictive but highly effective." She offered him a quick smile and found the guarded look had faded almost completely. "It won't stop you from waking up or cloud your thinking if you do; it just helps you fall asleep. I use it all the time and I figured you wanted to get some rest to get started today."

Bauer's mildly withdrawn gaze sharpened then. "I do. Tell me what's first."

Gibson stood up, carefully placing the file back in its sleeve. "First, I go get my dog. I'm not leaving the building but I'll need about twenty minutes or so just to be sociable."

"Todomachi, right?"

"Right. My cell's on speed dial 9 on the regular phone. I'll be back." Gibson backed away from the table and walked past him, stopping at the door. She gave him one last smile before backing out, pulling it shut and locking it.

Bauer watched her go with a slightly dull stare focused on the dark wooden door. There was something strange about her leaving that it took him a moment to register, or rather not so much her leaving, as the fact that she had left. He was alone… alone for the first time in months, alone and conscious of it at least, with no threat of torture hanging over him, no sound of an engine clanging or water pounding against a metal hull overwhelming his mind. Nor was he sick to the point of delirium or coiled in upon himself and waiting for the pain of needle punctures and electrical shocks to fade. He was alone but safe; he was alone but able to focus his mind on something other than when they would come for him again.

Bauer stood and walked over to the window, parting the dark green drapes enough to see the view. Gibson's apartment was over the utility room of the complex, overlooking the row of white stone houses, barely the breadth of a doorway between them, all with carefully tended lawns made of stone or mulch. If there was one deficit to living in Los Angeles it was the fact that one had to look hard, on occasion, to find a blade of grass. A half-dozen teenagers stood on the corner and Bauer wondered if they should be in school and then wondered what the hell day it even was. He hadn't had a way to know for so long, and then hadn't been aware there were days that were passing away from him or being taken. His hand clenched against the window frame, his fingers pinched with useless anger for long moments before he let the curtain fall back and went back into the living room. He reached for the remote control on the coffee table, turning the television on and flicking through the channels until he found one offering that it was Saturday. Just as he did, a knock came from the door.

"Jack, it's Cassie."

Bauer stood up, grateful for her thoughtfulness. It was her apartment; she could have just waltzed in the door. He opened it and stepped back, barely keeping his balance as a dog the size of a colt headed into the apartment, wheeling around when he realized it was occupied by someone he didn't know. The only leash he wore was his mistress' voice and it pulled him up as quickly as if it were a steel chain. "Todo, down. Sit."

Jack looked down at the now seated dog with a breathless smile. "Why did I know?"

"Not to expect a Chihuahua? Smart boy. You, not the dog. This is Todomachi, five year veteran of the K-9 Corps, shot in the line of duty and retired with honors." She knelt down and beckoned the massive German Shepherd over to her, taking Bauer's hand in hers and offering it toward the dog's wet, twitching nose. "Todomachi, friend. You understand? Friend." The hand not holding Bauer's wrist thumped against her breastbone. "Protect. Understand? Friend." Attentive and eager, the dog's bright eyes went from his mistress to Bauer and then he sniffed and licked the man's hand held before him before running off toward the kitchen.

Gibson shifted her weight to Bauer's hand and let him help her up, with the ulterior motive of getting an idea of how much strength he had regained. Satisfied, she turned toward him and rested her hands on her hips. "We kind of have to make a choice about where to get started. I could do it here or we can go down to where I've taught before."

"Why not here?"

Gibson blew out a short breath, "Because I don't know how well you might take the surroundings, how well you can draw a cultural line. I'm just being careful. There's something you have to see to make up your mind." She crooked a finger at him and led the way to the one door of the apartment that had been shut since he'd arrived. She hesitated a moment and then twisted the knob, letting the door slowly fall open onto the room beyond, watching Bauer for the least sign of reaction.

The room that had been locked was easily the largest one in the apartment. The natural wood floors were bare except for a double thick pile of black mats along the far wall. Black insets lined the paneling and three sets of weapons lined the walls, decorative and functional at the same time, two long, leather wrapped fencing bows, a pair of bushido blades, and two sets of nun-chucks. A raised platform followed the perimeter of the walls along the floor, narrow and holding a trench filled with sand. At regular intervals red and black candles were placed in the trench and on the walls farthest apart there were two wood carvings nearly three feet in circumference, one gold and one red. The carvings were Asian in design, each framed by two coiled dragons. Gibson stood back, ready for anything, she hoped, as Bauer walked into the room, slowly and deliberately, taking it all in before turning around enough to catch her eye. "It's Japanese, isn't it?"

Cassie followed him through the open door, nodding slowly. "I studied there for a year, nothing but weapons. My first sensei reached a point where he said there was nothing more he could teach me, so it was time for us both to be students again. I trained with those three weapons there, in his old school in Kyoto at his invitation." She pointed at the red symbol on the wall to Bauer's left. "That red one means strength." Her hand followed through to the other wall, "The gold one means patience." She offered him a still questioning smile. "Are you okay in here?"

Bauer nodded immediately, not failing for a moment to look her in the eye. "Where do we start?"

Cassie backed away from him, stretching to shut the door, "We start here then and we start very slowly. You attack. I'll defend but without returning a strike. Start with whatever you want and I'll adapt. We stop when I call it because you'll overextend yourself, deal?"

"Deal."

Xxx

She'd burned her fingers twice; the third time was even more unwelcome when it came but it had been years since she'd actually wired a circuit board and she needed the practice. Chloe O'Brian put down the tiny spot welder and stretched out her legs on the concrete floor. Mr. Buchanan knew where she was, nothing heavy was going on with field ops until they finalized the data they'd retrieved from Hassan, and refamiliarizing herself with the wiring on this level would help her when they needed emergency repairs – or she could just admit that she was hiding. Even if the stares had been grateful and admiring they were still stares. She almost burned her finger a fourth time when she got back to her feet.

'What the hell am I doing?' O'Brian scolded herself quietly. 'I'm the person around here who's supposed to care the least what everybody thinks'.

"And if I stay in here they'll all really think I did something I shouldn't have." She muttered, this time out loud. Chloe looked down at the stack of unwired circuit boards and tools. She was doing work a fourth level tech could do; Buchanan was cutting her slack she didn't need, and Curtis had, according to rumor, told everyone who had reason to cross her path that one word about her time with Bauer would get them a two week unpaid suspension. So, who was she hiding from? Well, that was easy, the two people she could tolerate the least at the moment, Audrey Raines and herself. Winters would probably tell her she was burning her fingers on purpose and the one person she could have happily unloaded on was now playing house with Jack. She couldn't imagine how that was going. Jack was probably deaf by now.

Chloe picked up the mess she had made and put everything neatly back for the fourth level tech to deal with; she probably should have taken the couple of days off Winters had suggested but Cassie was, of course, completely unavailable to get drunk with and Morris just didn't seem the right source of sympathy even if she became desperate enough to track him down. Beyond which, she didn't know what to tell either of them or didn't want to hear it if she did. Fine. Work. Save the world. Work some more.

"Crap!"

The pseudo-expletive hung in the air longer than she thought, bouncing off the glass and steel, echoing just for a second as she turned back toward the door and saw it opening. Audrey Raines froze as she cleared the barrier of thin steel and a weak smile pasted itself onto her face. "I thought I heard you in here. Are you --- Is everything all right?"

Chloe O'Brian managed a tense smile herself for a half second. "Yeah, fine. I'm just rewiring --- This is stupid. I'm stupid. I guess we have to talk. If you're wondering, and I know you are, I didn't sleep with Jack, not like sex or something. There were nights he was upset, remembering stuff, and I sat up and… I… I held him while he slept, but I never touched him, not like you might be thinking. Okay?"

Audrey backed up for a moment, taken off-guard by the change in tone and intention to say nothing of the words. She shut the door behind her and, after a moment's hesitation, locked it. "Since you're talking about Jack, I know you're telling the truth, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was hard to know Jack was locked away with you for weeks, entirely dependent on you, and apparently only able to trust you enough to be helped."

"No, I guess it wasn't but none of that was my choice. You were there when Winters told all of us. We all do what we have to around here, whatever it takes. Maybe if you understood that more, you'd understand Jack."

"So, you're in a position now to say that I don't?"

Chloe tilted her head back enough that she was looking down her nose at the other woman. "I'm saying I have been for a while." She offered Raines one of her more snide glares and took a long, slow breath. "Let me share a little something about geek stuff around here. Any transaction over $1000 dollars on a CTU computer is flagged on the internal dailies. I saw the airline tickets you got for yourself and your husband when you were going to take Paul back to D.C., two first class tickets with special medical arrangements -- both of them one way. You were gonna' leave Jack anyhow. He wasn't fighting the heroin any more; he was himself, he was doing his job. I'm not gonna' say you can't ever understand Jack but when you found out he was alive and then lied about cheap, drunk sex with a traitor while his friends were murdered didn't get you any points either, did it?"

The angry shock on Raines' face only hardened the cold one on O'Brian's. Audrey retreated a step and brushed angrily at the hot tears suddenly stinging her face. "How dare you speak to me like that? One word to my father and I'll have your job."

Chloe felt her temper get the better of her when the threat fell from Audrey's lips but had absolutely no desire to control it. "Fine, turn me in; I'll be glad tell everybody what I said." The words came out with searing venom, venting anger that had everything and nothing to do with Audrey Raines, eventually venting enough that Chloe found herself suddenly and strangely calm. The sight of Audrey Raines stunned into a ferocious silence did, she admitted to herself, give her more than a bit of pleasure. "I did what I did for Jack, no other reason, not even after he started to get confused about us… and he did, especially after I accidentally pulled the recording of you watching me dress him. I defended you, Audrey. I made excuses for you, because all I wanted was for Jack to do what was right for Jack."

A blush darkened Raines' face further at the revelation of her observance. "You defended me? Really? For Jack or to make yourself look more of a martyr?"

The open-handed blow that landed across Audrey Raines' cheek sent her staggering. Her lip was bleeding when she straightened and found herself looking up at Chloe O'Brian as the analyst rubbed her stinging hand. Chloe took an intentionally threatening step toward her and smiled to herself when Raines withdrew. "I'm not really great with threats, Audrey, but don't you ever accuse me of lying to Jack again or I will be more honest with him than you'd ever want."

Audrey Raines retreated away from the glare that was directed at her, finally forced to brace herself against the wall to come back to her full height. "I'm putting you on report."

"Go ahead. I was defending myself. They all saw you attack Jack when Paul died. I was just faster." She offered Raines an infuriating twisted smile and backed off, realizing her hand still stung. She felt the energy drain from her all of a sudden, replaced by a sense of dread and disgust. She'd never struck another person in anger since she was a child yet she also couldn't shake the sense of justification when she turned back to look at Audrey wiping her mouth and straightening her blood-stained suit. "I'm sorry, I think, but you said just the wrong thing and this wasn't easy for me either."

Audrey sighed and pressed her fingers gently across the swelling already happening on her jaw. "Maybe I shouldn't have said what I did. You found Jack, you got him through one of the worst things he'd ever experienced but then when I thought I could do something for him, he leaves with that Amazon sister of yours, who he barely knows and who hasn't exactly been objective. What was I… what am I supposed to think?"

Chloe O'Brian stepped back even further, her arms folded tightly across her chest. "Here's a clue. You should start thinking about what happened on that ship because if you couldn't deal with his life before now, how the hell are you going to handle what those bastards did?"


	22. Chapter 22

Chloe O'Brian sat down at her station with a little less angst than she had for the past three days… waiting for the inevitable glare of Bill Buchanan to greet her over the top of the screens. She'd finally decided that Audrey Raines was staying home or offering that she'd walked into a door if she were here. It was one thing for a field agent to come in roughed up, DOD liaisons required explanations, good ones. So much for that; she could only wonder and be thankful for the silence, and then hope that she would be the one to tell Jack. If he had to hear it, and he would, he wanted it to be from her.

The feed from Intellisat 4 erupted onto her screen and she sat about refining it, looking at the scattered islands of Indonesia and scanning the several dozen where al Qaeda had immersed itself of late. Great… fine… someone everybody here could hate. She tripped in the relay and sat back to watch it go through the automated sequence, only to find she was being watched herself.

Cassie Gibson found it strangely easy to, for once, look timid. Bottom lip in teeth, she waved curled, calloused fingers in a fragile "hello" as her sister spotted her hovering several feet away. Chloe felt the blood rush to her face and then found it had no purpose there. She wanted to be angry; she wanted to be furious, and in the next moment couldn't figure out whether she was about to laugh or explode in tears. She opted for a glare that sent her sister cringing and for a moment wondered if she were about to make another dramatic, sacrificial drop to her knees right in the middle of Operations. Instead, Gibson only stood quietly, waiting to see if she would even be spoken to much less forgiven. Chloe stared a moment longer and stood, setting her computer to auto-update the refinement for the next several minutes; she could fine-tune it later. Cassie subdued was Cassie unwillingly enlightened; there was little doubt in her mind that her sister had learned the details of Jack's time on the Shanghai.

Gibson looked away at her sister's approach, her hands brushing absently at the sleeves of her navy pantsuit. It took holding her lip in her teeth to keep from speaking first but she managed.

"I guess we need to talk."

"Would it help if I promise to release him unharmed?" The joke was answered with a glare that nearly drew blood. "I'm sorry, not just for the joke. The good news is… we'll probably both need to get drunk before this is over."

The admission told O'Brian how worried her sister was and her temper faded more than she thought was possible. "I got a little time, come upstairs. Nobody'll hear us." Chloe led the way up to the glass-enclosed room that loomed over the operational center, locking the door behind them. It was a room that radiated power and import even empty and Cassie backed away from the seats of the long steel table as if she felt she didn't quite belong. Oddly enough, if she'd only been a visitor, she would have dropped into one of the chairs without thought. For her part, Chloe was still on her feet as well, as if in some small concession to her desire to run.

"What are you doing here?"

"I brought Jack to see Dr. Winters. They didn't call you so I guess she thinks he's ready to start on his own."

Chloe pulled at the hem of her sweater, unraveling a yellow thread enough to wrap it around her finger and break it, welcoming the bite of the string. It focused her mind, made the pain something she could fight, something that would fade. Cassie was herself again when her sister looked up, confident and patient, strong and sure because she knew the next question and was ready for it.

"What the hell did you say to Jack? How did end up taking him with you?"

The steel table suddenly stopped looking so intimidating, so much so that Gibson walked around it and sat down on its edge before her sister, looking up at the tears glimmering in her downcast eyes. "I don't know. I really don't. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I was the second most surprised person there when I realized what I'd said. I then became the most surprised person when, right away, he more or less said "yes".

"He just said "yes"?"

"Not exactly but we both knew I was really just offering him a way out. I wasn't Audrey; I wasn't his daughter; I wasn't someone he had to answer to but I was someone safe, and someone he trusted."

The tears fell then and at the sight of them Gibson struggled with her own. Chloe swiped at her face with the back of her hand and cast a slightly accusing look at her sibling. "Just be careful with him, okay? I don't care if you're my sister, sometimes you come at people like a bulldozer."

Gibson smiled briefly and reached up to brush a calloused thumb across her sister's moist cheek. "Chlo', I didn't take this lightly; believe me. I know what I can be. That he trusted me that much instantly scared the hell out of me, and it scared me more after I read Winters' brief."

Chloe sniffed under the tears and took her sister's hand as they both sank down in chairs, facing each other for what seemed like the first time in a dozen nameless ways. "Just leave it alone about Audrey, okay? They are what they are."

"Not a word, even if he brings her up. I aired all that out with him long before I invited him. I told him I apologized to her, too."

A guilty glare screwed its way across Chloe's face and her sister's eyebrows quirked the question it demanded. "I had to apologize to her, too. Right after I slapped her across the face and split her lip."

"Really?!" As involuntary as it was inappropriate, a sudden grin worked its way across the older woman's face for a split second before she could stop it. "Sorry. What happened?"

"She said I lied to Jack… to make myself look better. I found her spying on us before we left. It was kind of sad but she shouldn't have been doing it. And she's not real happy with you, either."

"Gee, d'you think?." It took them both a moment to laugh, but it faded quickly and Gibson sat back, pulling at her pony-tail for a long few seconds before deciding to speak. She couldn't fix her own sister now but what she could offer her was what she valued both the most. The truth, the truth she doubted her sister had yet to realize and from which she would draw at least a bit of comfort.

"Sis, let's back up here a second. I ended up a cop because I wanted to fix the world; I have police dog with a bullet permanently lodged in his shoulder, and now a CTU agent with a nightmare lodged in his head. We know why I was crazy enough to ask Jack – I might've asked anybody in the same mess, but haven't you figured out why he came with me, someone he barely knows?"

O'Brian shrugged fiercely and sat back herself. "No, I was too confused to try."

Gibson sighed and looked up at the dark ceiling. Her sister spent too much time in front of computers; she'd lost a bit of touch with the human equation. "Honey, Jack didn't leave that safehouse with me; he left … with you." At her Chloe's dumbstruck look, Cassie sat forward again, well aware her sister was confused only because she wanted to be, because it gave her room for denial. Gibson leaned forward and tapped her sister's drawn forehead, "You kept Jack safe in here, and now, in his mind, I'm keeping him safe out there while he gets used to "out there" again. He might be calling me Cassie, Sis, but for him I'm just you with a badge and a gun."

The realization released the tension from O'Brian's face and she drew a breath that hung inside of her for several seconds before a gleam of accusation came to her eye. "You didn't do this on purpose, did you? Tell me you didn't? I don't want Jack that way or anybody. I don't want him beca---."

"No, no, I didn't. I swear to you… I did not: I swear to you… on my shield. I didn't realize it, think it, at least, until I read the file Winters' sent with us, and it was after we left and too. I didn't want to put him through being uprooted again. I'll just need to be more careful than I was going to be anyway."

"What about the file? What's in there?"

"Not what you think. Relax. When Jack and I were in the stairwell, he was kind of zoning out. I pulled him around to face me and he suddenly shoved his arm in my lap. I found out why in the file. He was offering me the trigger Winters had you use on him to get him to relax and focus. I don't think he even realized it, but the Jack Bauer you told me about wouldn't have offered that to a near stranger. So, I swear to you, I won't do anything to undermine him and I can help him in a way you can't. I've been letting him beat the crap out of me for a few times a day. He's better than he knows."

Chloe backed down from her previous worry, taking her sister at her word, remembering the almost drugged look on Bauer's face as her fingers had stroked the inside of his arm. "Jack -- sort of -- thinking you're me, do you think Winters' knows?"

Gibson reached up one more time and brushed the tears from her sister's face. "Monkey-butt, I don't think they gave her a Ph... Duh." She smiled and offered her sister another look of apology. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you the past couple of days. I made that offer to Jack without thinking it through for you."

The analyst nodded then offered her sibling a small shrug. "Yeah, well, you can't help yourself. If I hadn't called you you wouldn't have even been--."

"Hey, stop there. That's great. We'll make this mess all your fault. My hands are kind of full."

Chloe O'Brian sat back abruptly, glaring at her sister for several seconds before a fit of laughter overcame her.

xxxxxx

Gwen Winters glanced at the small gold face of her watch, many years of practice keeping the worry and bafflement off her face. Jack Bauer sat across from her, absently fiddling with the sleeve button of his gray dress shirt as he waited for her next words, his fingers moving slowly in defiance of his lingering discomfort. Even if it were present, it still wasn't at the level she expected, likely because he was trying to push himself again, was controlling his ire at her questions and seeming intrusions. That also meant that his answers were possibly unintentionally evasive to some degree. She went after that next, indirectly as always. He was one of the more clever ones.

"I'm not sure where to put some of this yet, Jack. It's a change not to have someone at least raising their voice to me a little by now."

"You're here to help me; I understand that."

"Yes, you do. More than most. I also know Dr. Colson saw you for a while after the death of your wife and the child she was carrying. He reported you were angry with him by the end of the first session. I'm glad you don't resent me but just to let you know, I am the expected target; I'm the one who invites that anger to release itself so it doesn't fester into something unexpectedly destructive."

Jack slouched forward then, his hands folded between his knees. "I spent a lot of time on the ship angry. It got me nowhere."

"So, you stopped being angry? When?"

"About two weeks into being held. I didn't have the energy by then, and I couldn't tell what was real to be angry at anyway. I kept hearing the voices of my friends, people I trusted, all telling me how I failed them, and since I had I should just tell the people holding me what they wanted. I spent all my energy on telling myself the voices weren't real."

"You controlled where you spent that energy, that's true, Jack, but do you think not giving the anger a place in your mind made it go away or made you any less deserving to feel it?"

"I don't know. How could I? I wasn't exactly up to analyzing myself under the circumstances, was I?"

"No, of course not. The mere fact that you had the focus you did is nothing less than amazing, Jack. You held onto the truth, how much the people whose voices were being altered meant to you. It made you value their loyalty and love even more. You deserve credit for that. You didn't let what they did break you."

"It would have. It had stopped working all the time," Jack countered, his eyes locked on the floor.

"Even if that had started happening, you're not here to deal with the hypothetical, Jack. What did happen is more than enough. Did those people you worked so hard to keep trusting come through?"

Seconds passed while Bauer realized the question wasn't rhetorical and he was expected to answer. Now talking about what had been done for him and not what he had done for himself, he looked up. "Yes."

"They found you in time and arranged the resources to rescue you?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" He replied, this time immediately and with a bit of the impatience she expected.

"You are, and so are those people and so are the truths that you hung onto so dearly. They are just as valuable to you as they were then but now you have the ability to focus on more than keeping them in perspective. You can apply that perspective to the rest of your life and their places in it."

Jack sat up abruptly, looking Winters in the eye. "Part of that perspective, Doctor, is I do not want my daughter to know what happened to me, and Audrey can't deal with it either."

"What your daughter learns is up to you, Jack. She doesn't have clearance here even if she has access. What Audrey chooses to learn or not learn, and how she can cope is really not up to you. Keeping the truth from her would only create a relationship based on evasion. You told me you told Chloe what they did to you to protect her, and you've protected Audrey in the past so it's fair to assume the same would have to happen now for you to have the same level of relations with her. Audrey asked after you a great deal when you were with Chloe."

Jack merely held the doctor's eye for a few seconds more, everything she had said roiling through his mind before he turned away, his gaze going to the bed two rooms away where he had spent the first few weeks back home. "I never spoke to her while I was up there. Chloe offered to call her. I suppose she's feeling… betrayed."

"Your relationship with Audrey was complicated, too complicated for her to serve as my facilitator. I explained to her that your need for a completely settled environment to stabilize yourself in was probably the source of your silence. I created that environment. You and Agent O'Brian maintained it, and it had the effect I was seeking. I'm sure Misses Raines understands or will understand your opting to isolate yourself. You're a generous person, Jack. I don't believe you could have gone back into a relationship of that dynamic without feeling you had something to offer. Chloe's presence didn't carry the same obligation to you, nor does Cassie Gibson's. How are things going staying with her?"

Jack gave a slight shrug at the sudden change in topic. "Fine. Chloe's sister… she's patient; she's considerate about what might affect me. She's a good cop, too. She's going to be a hell of a detective."

"I told Chloe the only reason I didn't come up there to check on you after that little incident with Agent Griffin was because of observations Detective Gibson shared, and it's not surprising you found her so helpful. When CTU deals with a threat, it's normally coming from people who are also professionals of a sort or who are dispensing their… misery according to some long-range plan. What a police officer deals with are people who are usually involved in immediate and upsetting situations. They have to have a much greater level of sensitivity."

Bauer shook his head and tugged at the bridge of his nose. He hadn't thought that part through himself but, Winters was right, it made sense that Gibson could work with him so easily. He didn't tell Winters Gibson had been also assaulted since she had shared the story in private. "Chloe's sister has been helping me learn to defend myself again. I can handle it; she takes it very slowly."

Winters frowned slightly, in consideration, however, not disapproval. "Well, that may explain some of the lack of aggression I was expecting. You found another channel for it. That's fine, Jack; it can be a good outlet for people in professions like yours and we can move faster that way. Curtis told me Cassie Gibson is an expert at martial arts; just don't push yourself too hard."

"No, Chloe's sister is pretty hard-nosed about that."

Winters nodded, "Well, on that same note. I want Dr. Adamson to look at you in a few weeks. I asked Chloe to if she would be there with you when he does. I think you'd understand why. She said if you wanted her, she would be."

Bauer allowed himself a small but genuine smile for the first time since he'd entered Winters' office and nodded slowly. "Yeah, it might be a little easier." Bauer focused on the blond woman with a new apprehension, however, as the smile faded. "Can you tell me when I might talk to her? Find out how she is? This wasn't easy for her either. I don't want her to think I --- I forgot or didn't ---."

"She's been back at work a few days, Jack, and a little feistier than usual. She ignored it when I suggested she take some time for herself. Her department's running like clockwork. I've offered to talk to her if she wants."

"She won't", Bauer explained immediately, his eyes going to the floor again.

"The only thing on her worry list, Jack, was you." Winters' replied with a sudden, unexpected smile. "You went to the safehouse in a very dependent state, Jack. I sent you that way so you would be forced into an intimate physical reliance on her. As you and she became more comfortable with her caring for you, the idea was that you would likely share with her what had been done to you and then you'd be better able to share it with me. Of course, by the time you parted, both of you had had a very profound emotional experience as well. I still think you need some distance yet to dull the influence. I've been doing pretty well so far, so bear with me, okay?"

Disappointed but understanding her caution, Jack nodded. "Tell her I asked, please?"

"Of course, I will, and I'll tell her I'm pretty amazed with where you are."

Jack sighed quickly, "I know there are issues of confidentiality so I'm giving you permission to tell Chloe whatever she asks."

"I understand; that's your right." Winters dropped her pen and flexed her hands. "We're done today. Get some rest, Jack, distract yourself, whatever you need to stop thinking about all this for a while and just let it filter." She stood up and walked him the short distance to the door, opening it to find Martha Logan, dressed for travel in a pale blouse and slacks, standing a polite distance away. Her face lit immediately when she saw both of them and reached for Jack's hand. He took it quickly in both of his own.

"It's good to see you, Mi – Martha."

"And better to see you, Jack. I came to say good-bye to Gwen and I heard you were here. I'm leaving for a press tour but if you or Chloe need anything, I'll be very disappointed if you don't call me."

"Thank you… and thank you for…", Bauer's voice fell silent, so inadequate did the words suddenly seem to the task he intended for them. "Damn it, how do you thank somebody for…?"

"…for returning a favor?" Martha Logan let go of him to rest her hands on his shoulders and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Get better, Jack, be yourself again, do whatever you want to do. This country owes you a debt it can't repay. I've only done the very least I could. So just do me the second favor of not arguing."

Bauer, fully prepared to have done so, merely nodded and returned it lightly as she kissed his other cheek. As he did he saw Gibson staring at them from a few yards away, her mouth hanging open and, for once, nothing clever coming out of it. She was gone when he looked again. Jack left Winters and Logan to their goodbyes and headed toward the exit, finding Gibson leaning on the x-ray machine on the entry side and chatting with the technician. She excused herself when he entered her peripheral vision.

"My God. Was that really… Martha Logan?"

"Yeah, you disappeared. I wanted to introduce you," Jack answered.

"Uh, no. That's okay. I'm just a mouthy beat cop at heart, Jack. Politics? Way out of my league. How did your session go?"

The vague amusement that Jack had felt over Cassie Gibson being star-struck faded. "Same as always, frustrating, confusing, exhausting. Let's just go straight back, okay?"

"Sure." Gibson nodded, offering a last wave to the security guard as he swiped their cards. She saw that Bauer's eyes were nearly closed as he walked up the ramp back to the parking garage. He sighed very slightly when her hand came to rest on the center of his back, steering him gently as they moved. He didn't even acknowledge the security detail accompanying them as he settled into the dark blue sedan.

Cassie said nothing, giving him his space, glancing at him on occasion when the traffic permitted. He didn't open his eyes until the darkness of the parking garage replaced the brilliant sunlight. "I'm sorry."

"You should be. I've cut you from the entertainment line-up at the Policeman's Ball," she snapped, poking him lightly as he released the seat belt. He said nothing but she heard him laughing quietly as they entered her apartment and received an enthused greeting from Todomachi that was curbed by a quick word from Gibson. The dog nevertheless glued himself to Jack as Bauer sat down on the couch, insisting on keeping his head beneath Jack's absently scratching hand. This time she said nothing to call the dog away, letting him practice his own brand of canine medicine.

Jack opened his eyes a short while later to find a stealthily provided cup of coffee sitting just out of his accidental reach on a warmer; there were advantages to being able to move like a ninja. Gibson was working hard to maintain them going by the muffled sounds coming from the small dojo. Jack listened to the strikes of the bow against the floor as he finished off his coffee and then changed clothes, holding back from opening the door until he heard her break.

Cassie, wearing a sleeveless white shirt and flowing white pants, turned toward him as he entered. Defined and sleek, he could see every muscle in her arms. She was dripping with sweat, save for her hands as they reset their grip on the long pike. Gibson nodded at him and went back to finish and Jack watched with daunted admiration as the bow moved in dangerous and powerful circles around her, too fast to be seen at times. The muffled taps he had heard outside the sound-proofed room were nothing compared to the deafening impacts that resounded off the walls. Ten minutes passed as she maneuvered the long weapon around her, sweeping, thrusting and striking at an enemy who could only have lasted this long by being imaginary. She came to a halt crouched on the ground with the bow extended parallel to one leg, breathing only a bit heavily. As Gibson stood she bowed to acknowledge a solitary round of applause.

"Did a little of that once with a pipe I found in an alley. Perp gave himself up; I never laid a hand on him. My partner patted him down and found his gun." She grinned and drew a smile from Bauer as he bowed before stepping on the floor and then joined her. She put the bow back onto the wall catch and faced him, mentally switching gears.

"Okay, where do you want to start?"

Jack moved back a step, gauging his distance. "You said you were going to show me a two-handed take-down."

She looked at Bauer for a moment to remember which. "Right, for now we stay where you have the most power. You're height is through your trunk. My legs are longer, so you want to keep me close, keep the fight inside my reach. Okay, forward strike as if you've got an opening at my jaw, slow."

Jack studied her for a second and realized for the first time she was slightly taller than himself. He stepped in just a bit closer and followed through with his right hand. A second before he would have connected, Gibson's crossed forearms came up beneath his own, her wrists flexing to seize his extended arm. She stopped, keeping hold of him. "Here's the key, I've got you but I've tied up both hands, that means I have to move before you can take advantage of that."

"Right."

"My next move would be to pull you with it in the same motion, turning the arm up as you go. That's how you'll get me inside your range. Are you ready to do that?"

Jack didn't hesitate, only nodded and stepped back as she released his arm. For the first go, Gibson simply offered him her hand and sent her own weight forward, letting him catch her arm behind her back. They repeated the move several times until Bauer found it second nature once again. He released her and stood back, holding her eye steadily.

"For real this time, Cass. I want you to come at me like you mean it." He waited for her reply, still not knowing her well enough to be sure she would take him at his word. She trusted him but she had been so cautious that he couldn't anticipate her response.

Cassie backed up slowly, recentering her weight. "Okay, you're calling the shots. Take your stance and don't be afraid to follow through." She let a moment pass after he was in the proper position facing her, her fist lashing out, but coiled to stop at any moment. Seconds later, smiling, she found herself on the floor, stopping her body from making the instinctual counter-move. Jack let her up with a huff and helped her to her feet, smiling.

"Okay?"

"Absolutely." She replied; it was the first time she had thrown anything at him that wasn't set up long beforehand. "Don't get caught up in that, Jack. You're supposed to get over it. Let's do it again."

They did and she let him go on longer than even before this time, the new confidence filling him as he faced a series of carefully delivered blows that he deflected by more than the move she had shown him. Battered but happy with herself, Cassie bounced away from him for a moment and called a time-out, letting him catch his breath. He did so fast enough that she decided she could safely work him a little more.

"Okay, Jack, now it's your turn. I want you come at me like you mean it. I won't return strike yet but, no offense, you can't hurt me yet so don't hold back."

Jack nodded but it took him a moment to move and when he did it was still slowly. She caught each blow and reset herself for the next, holding herself from returning it in kind. However, as the minutes passed, Bauer's attacks became more focused, faster, challenging her skill as they hadn't before now. It was the two-handed strike at the side of her head that set off an alarm within it. Now the decision was hers, let him continue or stop him and talk him down. He really couldn't harm her, not yet, her only worry was that he not harm himself. She was still the one in control here and for the first time since he'd been with her, Chloe's sister saw a cold fire in his pale eyes; the downcast, hunted look was gone as he remembered who he had been and what he had been capable of doing. The best thing she could do was let him remember.

Cassie unclenched her fists long enough to beckon at him with both hands. "It's okay, Jack, come on, come on. Let me see what you've got."

As powerful as heroin had been, it had nothing on adrenalin. Gibson's words, her invitation, drew him forward… and then drew him back, back to a time when he wasn't bound, wasn't too sick to stop the next tormentor. Bauer centered himself, directing a back-fisted blow at the opponent in front him that was deflected with a grunt and hiss. She was ready for the next one as well and the two after it; she was Chloe's sister, she could handle this; she was as good at this as he had ever been. Jack focused in on her voice as she beckoned him forward once more.

"That's it. Again. Come on. Come on. Let it go, Jack, let it go."

And he did, moving forward again, not holding back as Gibson deflected his punches but didn't return them, drawing his attack. Letting go was easy; there was so much to let go of… so much he suddenly remembered.

Gibson let the next several punches closer and closer, allowing the last to take her to the ground before rolling back to her feet. Jack was back on her in seconds, but she could see he was finally flagging; his breathing was labored and his guard was no longer properly raised. She leapt clear of his next blow, regaining the distance that was her advantage in fighting someone of Jack's build. The time had come to fight smart and carefully bring him down. Jack closed the distance she had put between them to prepare herself. Moments after he threw his next punch, however, he found himself on one of the black mats, pinned carefully but firmly to the ground and panting, Cassie's voice calm and soothing above and behind him. "Jack, come on back here. Are you with me?" Bauer nodded and she released her gentle but unyielding hold.

Bauer didn't move as the feel of her hands faded from his skin, didn't speak, only turned over onto his back, his breaths coming hard, his eyes closed. His hands slowly unclenched, his fingers trembling, shallow nail marks embedded in both palms. Cassie took the one he slowly reached toward her in both her own, her fingers drifting gently over the sedating trigger. "How long have you been waiting to do that?"

Bauer didn't answer her at first, lying still until his breathing stabilized and his heart was no longer pounding. "I was trying when they took me. I was trying when I couldn't tell they weren't real." He smiled then, his eyes still closed, tears sliding down toward his temples. "Thank you."

"My privilege, Jack."

"I didn't hurt you?"

"No more than I invited, my choice, my fault."

Jack slowly opened his eyes then to offer her a smile of weary exasperation; he groaned and lightly ground his teeth, accepting Gibson's help as he slowly sat up. "Chloe said basically the same thing to me once, when I saw what I'd done to her every---."

"I saw those bruises before you did, Jack. Chloe wasn't any more worried about them than I am about mine." She gave him a look that ended that discussion permanently, and then sat down facing him on the mat. "I talked to Monk—Chloe when you were in with Winters."

Jack sat up straighter then, ignoring the complaints from every muscle involved. "How is she?"

"The short version: she accused me of being a human bulldozer but I've promised to release you unharmed. I obviously screwed up that less than two hours later." Gibson's eyes sparked with humor long enough to draw a tight smile from Bauer, then she went back to his real concern. "She's okay, Jack. She was just worried about you, maybe a little on edge, but the better off you are, the better off she'll be."

A small sigh overtook him at her words. "Winters told me as much but…".

"But you know she wouldn't tell you anything she thought might compromise… yeah, I get the idea." Cassie nodded and slowly came to her feet, helping Jack to do the same when his movements were less steady than he'd hoped but no worse than she expected. An hour later, showered and fed, she watched him take a few aspirin then finish off the valerian-tainted tea and fall immediately to sleep beneath a single blue blanket, the hunted, anxious light now seemingly banished from his eyes.


	23. Chapter 23

The shock of water woke him again, the salt searing its way through the wounds on his back, dulled only for a moment by the cold of the Pacific depths from which it had been drawn.

"Two hours, eighteen minutes, Mr. Bauer. You must be wondering how much longer it will be, how long before we know what we want. Your friends have given up on you already; you won't be disappointing them if you end this now."

He was naked again; this time face-down, the cold metal table pinching and bruising him where his weight rested, the current arcing through him randomly where the needles had pierced his flesh. It hurt too much all over to even know exactly where she had first shoved then in. He would know that later, back in his cell, as the acid of his own vomit seeped into the tiny burns.

One mercy they gave him was the padded bar between his clenched teeth, there only, however to keep him from biting through his tongue and bleeding out.

"Tell them what they want, Jack. You let Logan kill me already. How could it matter?" David Palmer's voice droned on until the words lost meaning. There was silence for a moment and the current sang through him again, this time from the soles of his feet. Before the crushing and constriction had passed, Martha Logan was there, her graceful voice at odds with her words.

"My husband was the President, Jack. You're just a traitor; you made one of me."

The voice of Martha Logan in Jack Bauer's nightmares was suddenly replaced by the one who had become his friend. "That isn't me, Jack. Please hang on. You were the only one strong enough to do the right thing."

The pain began to fade as the real voice of Martha Logan replaced the created one forced into his head, the one who tormented his mind while cold, skilled hands tortured his body. They were moving over him again, seeking out flesh yet spared. The hands stopped at the inside of his right leg, just above the knee, stretching and spreading a small patch of skin. Jack tensed, gasping, waiting for the burning penetration, his cramped stomach already threatening to rebel.

He took no relief when the hands suddenly withdrew, nor when the blindfold was removed. The man he knew only as the false doctor leaned down close to him and slipped the earphones out of his tender and ringing ears then lifted his head from the table.

"Perhaps you are too good for us, Mr. Bauer. We know who you are, what things you've done. We are only a slower way, a more difficult way than the path you might have chosen for yourself save for the thought of what that would do to one… other… person."

Naked and bloody, Kimberly Bauer was thrown to the floor before him.

Pain flashed for a moment through Cassie Gibson's head before the adrenalin overcame it. She dragged herself up off the floor and dog, swiping at blood as she bolted into guest room and found what she expected, Jack Bauer in the grip of a nightmare, incoherent with pain that existed only in his mind. He'd lost the covers at some point and lay tense and sweating in his undershirt and briefs, his hands twisting into the dark fabric of the bed sheet.

Knowing he would grab her as soon as the sleep paralysis faded, Gibson nonetheless ignored his hands and took hold of his face, pitching her voice low and pacing her words evenly as she tried to break his mind free of its self-created prison. "Jack, it's Cassie. This isn't real. Jack, it's Cassie, it's time to wake up." Eyes still closed, he did nevertheless turn toward her, his breaths ragged but his focus dividing as she repeated herself. The fourth time she did, Gibson cut herself off, a pitying smile tightening her face, remembering the conversation she had had with her sister. Offering a silent plea for his forgiveness, Cassie spoke the words she knew had the best chance of quickly unlocking his mind.

"Jack,… it's Chloe; …this isn't real." Gibson sighed as he reacted immediately, the tension beginning to slowly leave him. She repeated herself twice more before Bauer's eyes stopped moving and opened, still glazed with his temporary divorce from reality.

"Chloe?"

"Wake up, Jack," Gibson ordered, no longer intending to perpetuate the false comfort. "This isn't real." What was real for Bauer, however, was still a fading debate.

Freed from the paralysis of the deeper nightmare, Bauer nearly sat up, reaching for the sister he thought she was. "Stop them. They have Kim."

Gibson winced at his words and only then returned his embrace, holding him lightly and stroking his tensed arms. "No one has Kim, no one. It's all right, Jack. Wake up now, come on."

He remained for a moment between two worlds and made one last grasp for the one that was fading. "Chloe?" The soft, keening tone of disappointment told Cassie the illusion had nearly run its course, that Bauer was awakening to a grief she had, out of need, inflicted to replace the greater one. She took the liberty of rubbing his back slowly just a few times then eased him down to the bed, throwing the sheet back over him. There was a moment of alarm when she saw the dark smear on his face in the dim light and then realized the blood was her own. Jack winced as she turned on the light and grabbed a few tissues from the box next to the bed.

"Hold still, I'll have the sharks after both of us." Gibson wiped the blood from his forehead and then pressed the tissue against her eyebrow.

"What happened to you?"

She pointed at the dog as he stepped up next to them, nuzzling Bauer's hand and Gibson's leg. "I woke up and tripped over that one; the coffee table took the opportunity to stage a sneak attack."

"You were sleeping on the couch?"

"I can't hear you well enough from my room," Gibson answered with a searing, familiar "don' argue" glare, "although I would have tonight. You were dreaming they had Kim?"

Jack nodded slowly. "They brought her to me beaten, told me I would break if they tortured her."

Gibson nodded. There was no answer to that she could offer, only a diversion that would help the images fade from his mind. Patting his hand, she came to her feet, a sudden look that made Jack wary in her bright green eyes. "Did you want to get back to sleep?"

Bauer offered her a short, humorless laugh, his hands scrubbing at his face. "Your jokes are usually better."

"Not really, I just save the good stuff for my tougher audiences." She smiled then and pouted at him for a moment. "How about we take a ride?"

"Sure, fine." Bauer's eyebrows lifted slightly as he sat up and brought his legs over the side of the bed, forced to pet the dog nuzzling them as he did. "Where?"

"Put on something warm and something you can move in. Beyond that, trust me, Kiddo."

Jack left the guest room a half-hour later, wearing jeans and heavy plaid shirt under a dark blue coat to find Gibson, her hair pulled back in a pony-tail, dressed in boots and a black camp shirt, also in jeans, finishing filling a bulky tan backpack with water and a few items of food. A black coat lay on the table, along with a strange set of keys. "How far are we going?"

A look of feigned ignorance passed over her long face. "Not far. It'll just be a little hike to get there. One last thing, though, and the option's yours, I borrowed Jamal's mother's truck; if you're okay with it, ...we can ditch your security detail."

Jack looked down at the surface of the table holding the pack, lost in a clutter of CTU protocol briefings, covert locations in the city, and a myriad of other things that Gibson would need to know and that he would as well if he were to part of the organization again. Off to the side, away from the rest, was the file he had found on one of chair seats, the brief that Winters had sent back with them, that told Gibson most of what he'd done at CTU, what to avoid for him, what to encourage. He had a feeling she'd read it and picked and chosen what she would follow and what she wouldn't, that like her sister she would trust her own instincts as far as he was concerned. Jack looked up from the file to meet her eye and found himself wearing a lop-sided smile. "It's about time, isn't it?"

Gibson's expression didn't change in the slightest, didn't betray the humility she felt at his trust even if it was mostly by unconscious proxy. "Pull your hood up," she ordered, doing the same. Jack followed as she went down to the parking garage and over to the borrowed light gray SUV, trailed by Todomachi. Ten minutes later, out from under the scrutiny of the CTU guard, they were out on the streets of L.A., heading east through the nearly empty streets, finally mounting the highway that took them clear of the city. They drove an hour more before Gibson turned into the hills, following a ridge that bordered the fringe of the desert. The land surrounded them completely, what little they could see of the sky was, to the west, lit with the lights of the city. Twelve miles after they turned south, Gibson pulled over and stopped the truck in what could only be described as the middle of nowhere. They hadn't seen another car for an hour. Mere shadows in the darkness, massive rock formations reached for the sky in every direction but where the road had been blasted through them.

Jack looked at the shadowed and seemingly forbidding territory as Cassie tucked the keys into her coat pocket and zipped it shut. "What is this place? What are we doing out here?"

Gibson stifled a sudden giggle. "It's too late now, Jack. I've… I've brought you out in wilderness to have my way with you."

Bauer stared at the grinning woman for a moment then reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, "Well, that would keep Winters scribbling for a few sessions, wouldn't it?"

A look of only partially feigned shock danced over Gibson's face for a moment, "My God, Jack Bauer, was that… was that… a joke? No, don't answer; let me bask in the glory of my assumed influence. I'll need the reinforcement for the trip down." With that she was gone, out of the passenger door, followed by Todomachi whose tail absently caught Jack across the face as he bounded over the seat. When Jack reached the open hatch of the vehicle, Gibson had already retrieved the backpack and was shrugging into it.

"Seriously, where are we?"

Cassie slammed the hatch down and leaned against it. "It's nowhere in particular, just somewhere my first partner took me once when I needed time to think, not here exactly though -- are you up for a climb? It'll be worth it, I promise."

"Lead the way."

If Jack doubted she had been here before, the doubt would have been erased by the fact that Todomachi instead took the lead as soon as they turned toward the hillside, disappearing between a pair of boulders. There was an almost path there, steep but not unmanageable, strewn with enough rocks that they were forced to move slowly in the darkness, except for their four-footed leader who knew the path well enough to occasionally trot out of sight then come back to check on them with eyes that glowed with impatience in the moonlight. It took a good forty-five minutes of slow progress through the narrow passage, barring the occasional pause to listen for rattlesnakes, before Cassie finally stopped, leaning against a rock face to her right and catching her breath. The sounds of the night desert filled the gap when their breathing slowed, no longer making puffs of translucent white in the chilled air.

Jack pulled up beside her, looking up through the crevice before them and the bright "V" of sky he could see through it. They were almost to the top of the stone ridge. "Why did you stop?"

"I need to follow you now," she answered, glancing at the opening before them. There was a catch in her voice that he recognized all too well.

"Sure." He moved past her in the moonlight and turned back to offer her his hand. Her grip was unintentionally tight and dry and whatever subtle tricks she had played on him before, her need this time was real. A minute later, he understood why. The gentle turn of the slope had been somewhat deceiving, the ledge onto which they had arrived was several feet wide and on the face of a cliff that dropped nearly 200 feet straight down. Away from it, twelve miles distant, Los Angeles glowed in the darkness, spread out before them in a carpet of light that met every horizon. Her eyes focused on the distance, Cassie stepped up beside him and gestured to their left. He saw where she wanted them to go, to a broad shelf ten yards further on. Keeping hold of her hand, he led the way. The ledge they were on was easily five feet across but he moved across it slowly, well aware that two his companion it probably seemed more like five inches. He pushed her ahead of him when they reached the much broader outcrop and watched her sink to her knees with an impatient sigh.

"Thanks."

Bauer followed her down to the ground. "You must have a good reason for bringing me up here."

"Up being the important word? Yeah, and blame Chloe for the self-guided finale. She was forever climbing trees when she was little, mostly to get away from the other kids; every once in a while she would outdo herself, and one of those times when she was stuck I took the hard way down pulling on her. She climbed down the damn thing then to get to me some help." Gibson scowled and took a deep breath then dropped the backpack before her, removing the food and water until she reached the insulated gray blanket underneath. She tossed it on the ground before them and they both sat down, isolated from the cold and gritty ground. "I'm okay now. And as for what we're doing here… It actually is just for the view."

Bauer sat silently for several moments, not looking at her as he took it in, blowing on his fingers against the chill of the night air. "You're a horrible liar."

"True… I blew my first undercover. I did warn them but I fit the description too well to get out of it. Oh, well, now that I've been caught again…," she paused, her voice dropping as she turned him toward the lights. "I did bring you up here for the view, but not the one you're seeing… mine, to see this city like I see now, to see it knowing I owe it still being here to you."

Bauer turned then, looking at Gibson as she sat draped over her upraised knee, staring out at the view in question as if to illustrate her point. "If you mean the nuclear bomb, a man named Mason landed---."

"I read the briefs, Jack. I know what happened. I also know you put the pieces together first. I also know about the virus and the Salazars, all the rest except for few things about President Palmer my new access wouldn't cover. And if it wasn't a nuke but just a contained threat, you would have still saved my life; I would have been on the front line, if not at the site then handling the lovely souls who would mourn their fellow human beings by looting and rioting."

Bauer didn't answer her, following her example and staring out at the lights of the city, not yet seeing it as Gibson might have hoped but still able to appreciate the view for its esoteric quality. When he spoke finally, the question caught her off-guard. "Have you ever killed anyone?"

Gibson turned to look at him then, needing the space of a breath to answer, "Twice. All the stories you hear, all the warnings about what happens if you make that choice… when I got to that moment, it wasn't that hard; I had to save myself the first time, someone else the second. So, yeah, I have blood on my hands but I keep in mind it's there because people trusted me, to save them and to save myself." Gibson sighed and brought the focus back where it belonged now that she had shared with him that she, too, had made that necessary if terrible choice. "But the people who trusted you -- you were forced to cut yourself off from, then you came back to save Chlo', for which I am unspeakably grateful, and you were taken away and lost those people again. Maybe in the long run that was the worst thing they did to you."

Bauer took his eyes of the city, ducking his head to stare at the blanketed ground. "I didn't cut myself off completely, the first time. Your sister was always there. She was the only one smart enough to cover her tracks to come to me so that I could know how my daughter was doing. Chloe never lied to me, not consciously; she never told me how bad I made things for Kim."

"You mean that beautiful, young woman who had the genetics to pick herself up and start over? I'm not saying you didn't. But I made things bad for Chloe and my parents when I came home and announced I was going to get shot at for a living. Chloe made it even worse when she came home with a job at CTU. Everybody with jobs like ours, we make things bad for the people we love because we know all the things that can hurt them, and they become even more important to us. We have a curse, Jack, we see the big picture, then we realize just how crooked the picture is and get so obsessed with fixing it, that we can't see anything else. I saw my first partner do this; I don't want to see you do it, too."

"What happened?"

"I pulled my first dead kid out of dumpster, and Norm was so worried about me and the family he let things go at home. That was when his wife left him - she thought something else about us, and his son got in with the wrong crowd and took the hit in a drive-by. Norm was late coming in one morning a month later and I knew what I'd find but I left the official ID up to his wife. I was what blinded Norm, Jack, I don't want to see that happen to anyone else, so you look out there for me now, you sit here and remember what makes this all worth it and after all you've given up that you deserve your part of that, too."

Jack didn't answer her but he moved closer and did what she wanted, what he knew they all wanted, saw not just the vista of lights and towers but the lives beneath their existence, the ones he knew he had saved. If he weighed their numbers against those lives he had taken, the harm he had done -- the math stood for itself and he felt the guilt give way for a moment to a blurred justification. If all these people would have appreciated his sacrifice - when would his daughter? Why did he have to beg Audrey to begin to understand when she had grown up knowing what danger the world faced? He'd been taken in by a near stranger to avoid them both. Jack turned to look at Gibson as she unfolded her knee and stretched out face-down on the blanket, near the edge of the cliff but apparently fine as long as she was flat on the ground. Todomachi, who had been carefully sniffing around them followed suit and after a moment, Jack laid down as well, still staring out at the grounded starlight before them. "So how did you get so smart in so young?"

Head propped in her hands, Gibson turned to look at him, hearing something different in his voice, something that told her that her plan had at least worked in part. "Careful with the flattery, Kid. I might make good on my threat in the car, and I do have a year or two on you." She drew a smile from him with her own and then took a long breath. "That year I spent in Japan, I spent six weeks at a monastery of Buddhist nuns, and I met a very old monk who knew I was a cop. Actually, he seemed to know everything. He gave me a piece of advice I think about every time I flash my shield or wonder what I might be getting myself into, 'The greater the force for good, the greater will be the evil that seeks it out'."

The humorless laugh she had come to expect from Bauer came again as the first hint of dawn crept across the sky from behind them. "I wish the hell someone had told me that before I took this job."

"It wouldn't have stopped you. It didn't stop me. But I think that's why I held off from taking the detective's exam for so long, it would mean I'd be collaring more than drunk celebrities, street rats and people who didn't know the meaning of domestic bliss."

"You even tell yourself the truth when it's hard to hear. That's what makes you a good cop and a better friend."

"Well, you can blame my parents; they pre-destined me. Cassie's not actually my name, Jack. How's your Greek mythology?"

Bauer stared at her in the near darkness, searching his memory of books and classes twenty years past. An enlightened smile suddenly touched his down turned lips. "Cassandra."

"Got it in one. Cassandra, the prophetess to whom the gods gave the gift of unwanted truth."

"She was always right in the end," Jack answered, giving her one of his own "don't argue" glares. He fell silent again for a long while, still lying prone on the outcrop, until the dawn threatened to overcome them completely. Just before it did, he turned toward her. "Did you want to get out here before we can really see where we are?"

Cassie propped herself up on her elbows, easing forward to glance quickly over the edge, "No, not yet. You'll take care of me. Just like I used to pull Chloe down from trees."

"You were a good big sister, too"

"Yeah, and I don't mind being on loan."

Jack turned and offered her a grateful smile, but his eyes were a bit too bright, a bit too blue before they closed and his chin dropped onto his crossed arms. "I have to sort the rest out for myself though. The past few weeks have been… I wouldn't be where I am without Chloe, and I can't trust what I feel."

Cassie sighed and shook her head slowly as the first gleam of rose-tinted sunlight came off the glass towers in the distance. "I made her a promise I wouldn't interfere except I will tell you, Chloe will accept whatever will make you happy. Just like you make things about everybody else, for us this is about you." Gibson turned onto her side and faced him, her loyalties no longer divided. This was about Jack Bauer, the man she knew her sister loved, but the man who had become her friend. She reached over to brush her fingers through the fine hair near his temple. "Maybe there's one thing more I can say, and I don't quite know how I got here myself, but maybe you need to give Audrey a chance to understand, too."


	24. Chapter 24

"No one should be this much better in ten days, Special Forces or not," Gibson remarked, drawing a smile from Jack as she regained her balance. The side kick that had seemed as if it would slip in under Bauer's guard and catch him lightly in the chest had been deflected upward, sending her landing off-balance. Far from being unhappy about it, she bounced out of it and came down again on her own terms, her guard back up and ready to take it up a notch now that she knew her student was ready. This time she kept her distance, faked him out with the first kick and used its impetus to pull her around for the second. Her heel caught Bauer across the ribs but she pulled the blow just as it landed. Jack grunted lightly and began working out a new strategy to get back inside the reach of those long, white-clad legs. Of course, here he had the luxury of trial and error and being delivered blows that were landed in name only.

Jack backed up, keeping his weight centered and dropping his guard to falsify an opening; he was surprised when Cassie suddenly stopped. "You're going for that two-handed take-down I showed you last week?"

Bauer huffed to a stop himself. "Well, I had been."

"Okay, let me show you how to stop it if someone uses it on you. Go for it."

He did and the moment he had hold of her arm, the knee of the leg that had been taking her forward intentionally gave way and the full of her weight was suddenly on him as her other leg swept into the back of his knee. Jack went down in an almost undignified heap except that Gibson broke his fall and was suddenly standing over him with at least three options to strike.

"Even if it's your strength, drawing an opponent inside has disadvantages, keep that in mind."

"Damn. Is there a countermove to that?"

She gave him a dull grin. "Yeah, you let go. They keep going." She giggled and pulled him up, "But it's supposed to happen too fast to give whoever grabbed you the chance."

Cassie bounced back a step again, "Try it, but this is usually one of those flashy exhibition moves when you do the sweep. It takes a while."

Jack backed up, his guard raised, and swung slowly, letting her catch his wrist, and ready to let his weight fall forward under his own pre-emptive control to see what it felt like from the other side. Cassie obligingly kept hold of him when he fell forward, only realizing at the last second he'd miscalculated their difference in height. The point where she had let go was too soon for him to have, her center of gravity was still greater, and quick as she was, she was she unable to keep his shoulder from overextending as his trapped wrist pulled him around.

Bauer went down gasping, a burning sensation lancing across his back. His vision blanked for a moment before clearing but by then the pain has settled to a sharp pounding. Cassie was on her knees beside him, her lip caught in her teeth. She moved to hold him down and immediately thought the better of it, even softening the tone of her voice when she spoke. "Don't move, Kiddo."

He didn't, his eyes locking onto her as the pain teased at his mind as much as his body. Gibson was real. She was now. He was safe. "Just give me a second. I'm all right."

"I'm sure you are but am I wrong to think this is the first time you've been in any really noticeable pain since you got back?"

Bauer ended his thoughts about sitting up as the words left her mouth. "Yeah."

Cassie nodded and sat back on her heels when she sensed the resistance leaving him. The authority that she used every day came immediately into her voice. "All right, that means we take this slow. You've probably just pulled a muscle. I'll I do all the work; keep your eyes on me." Cassie knelt down in front of him on the leg she would use as a fulcrum, the other extended almost its full length behind her, set to work as a lever. "Stay with me. You didn't know me before any of this happened, right? I'm here. I'm now. Focus on me, Jack. I'm gonna' count to five and then we'll go."

As much for her sake as his own, Jack followed her instruction and locked his eyes on the worried green ones before him. She slid her arms beneath his and, letting him use only his legs, helped him up. Under her left wrist she could already feel the offended muscle swelling and growing warm.

Gibson released him and they went to the guest room where she turned down the bed and told him to sit but not lay down. Jack once again complied, wondering what she was doing when he heard the microwave bell a few minutes later. Cassie reappeared in the doorway with an armful of towels and an ice pack, dropping them next to him on the bed. He could feel heat radiating from half the small bundle.

Her tone was slightly curt again when she spoke and Jack realized it was as much to reinforce herself as it was to draw obedience from him. She was probably more perturbed than he was that she'd been involved in causing him any kind of a pain at all. "Let's see what we've got here, okay?"

Jack nodded and leaned forward as she pulled the gray sweatshirt up from his waist and over his head; he eased out his left arm but let her do the work to remove the right. Cassie looked at the undershirt he'd had on beneath it with distant surprise as she tossed the sweatshirt toward the hamper. "How about I let you manage that?"

Jack reached for the hem of the thin, white, cotton material but hesitated suddenly, a tremor passing through his left hand that she could see. Gibson's voice softened considerably. "It's all right, Jack. I've got a few good ones of my own."

Bauer's expression didn't change from the sudden downcast turn it had taken but he pulled the undershirt up; she was forced to help him when the awkward angle at which he was beginning to hold his right arm interfered. Swallowing, Jack straightened as she pulled it free to toss it with the first one and she could see the puncture marks and a bullet scar not far from where one of her own called home. She retrieved one of the towels and folded in into a short thick square, positioning it on the bed where his right shoulder would come to rest.

"Lie down; let's get this thing before it makes itself worse."

Jack nodded and with a last sigh turned his back toward her, admiring her self control when he heard only silence.

The ice-pack in her hand, Cassie bit at her lip to keep her focus on a different sort of pain as she looked at the road map of scars on Jack Bauer's back, cruelly inflicted but randomly so for the most part; it was, however, the series of them that ran between his shoulder blades that lacked any element of chance. Rife with inhuman intent and incomprehensible deliberation, carved into his flesh with roughly four inch long incisions were the letters "C-T-U", spelled out now in smooth pink scars.

Helpless against the overwhelming if impotent need to ease even pain long past, Gibson watched her fingers reach out and stroke the savage insignia. "Talk about a badge of courage."

"At least they didn't spell it out," he muttered, eyes still distant. 'Chloe never told you?"

At the mention of her sister, Cassie overcame her shock and smiled. "No, probably because what's underneath them was much more important."

Jack turned upright to look Gibson in the eye then, a smile suddenly easing the tired anger that had been on his face as he'd exposed his back to her for the first time. He said nothing, however, and lay back down, sighing as she gently folded his arm behind him, probed the perimeter of the pulled muscle, and put the ice-pack where it would do the most good. A small distance away, enough to keep the inflamed tissue from absorbing the heat, she stretched two warm, steaming towels above and below it, and then folded his legs and slid a pillow beneath his shins so that the tension left his back completely. Satisfied, Gibson sat down in the chair next to the bed, "Okay, Kiddo, you survived a month of torture; you can put up with me fussing for the next few hours. You rest and I'll redo all this but I think we should put off your appointment at CTU for tomorrow. No sense giving them more to worry about."

An honest-to-God pout darkened Bauer's face for a moment and he lay cocooned in healing cold and comforting warmth. He hadn't cared so much they were going to be poking and prodding at him as he had cared that he would be able to see Chloe when they did, that he would finally have a chance to see how she was for himself.

"You think it's that bad?"

"I think they'll be over-cautious; this might make them assume you're pushing yourself too hard. Doesn't matter that's not what happened."

Jack closed his eyes and twisted his head against the pillow. "You're right. I just want to get this over with but I'll have to be in the best shape I can. This wasn't your fault you know."

"Well, ultimately it's always the teacher's but how it happened isn't important. While you put up with me fussing though there's something you need to think about. You're welcome to stay here, Jack, but when we do go back to CTU, it might be time for you talk to Audrey. You've barely said two words to her any time she's called. I was thinking you might want to spend some time with her after they get done with you and you know how Sis is doing."

Jack took a long, careful breath and met only a minor twinge of pain. "I know I should. I just don't want there to be---."

"That will not happen. I will not let it." Gibson stated quietly, leaving out unless Chloe clocked Audrey across the face again. Oh, well, that was one bit of honesty he didn't need. "Even if something did, you can deal with it; you're almost there, Jack. Think, what would you have done if I'd taken a swing at you six weeks ago?" He didn't answer because they both already knew. "So, how about you get some rest and I make a couple of phone calls?"

Jack held her eyes for a moment before his own closed; he was suddenly more tired than he should have been. Audrey was worried, he knew that much, but the memories of her that had resurfaced the most in recent weeks were the ones that had cast a pall of darkness over their relationship, the ones in starkest contrast to the world into which he'd been living since consciousness had returned, one he'd had no reason to question, without complications, with nothing but acceptance even from someone who had been a stranger only weeks ago. As Winters had hoped, despite his doubts, it had grounded him, the acceptance of every one of those around him letting him accept himself, a self who now included the wounded, sickened, and terrified man he had been for weeks; the one who had nevertheless survived. He hated the thought of that world of trust being taken away but, at the same time, knew that existing only in ideal isolation was as delusional as living in world where he knew nothing but sickness and agony. Heroin had done that to him once, and he'd promised himself nothing ever would again.

The real world, the one that he was still protected from – the one with which he must deal to regain his life, was one in which trust and acceptance were precious and rare commodities, especially in the life he had chosen. Once he returned to it, he would appreciate their value even more, but the longer he remained isolated, the greater the chance he would begin to take them for granted; that he refused to do. It was time he gave the rest of the world a chance to offer him the same, and the rest of the people who had been in his life. He had to live again in a world where he was taking chances.

Bauer lifted his head as his thoughts settled, only to have Gibson push him gently back down as she changed the cooling but still warm towels for a set of newly warmed ones and then replaced the ice-pack. "I thought you'd fallen asleep. You didn't answer me."

"I'll call Audrey," he replied slowly, "I need to know what we might have." Suddenly in real danger of drifting off, he made the effort to look Gibson in the eye. "Go ahead, move the appointment, then call Buchanan and tell him I need my office back so we can finish what we started here."

"Yes, Sir."

xxxx

They were early, an hour earlier than Bauer's actual appointment and a little earlier for the one that mattered more. Cassie's slightly longer legs were the only thing keeping her from breaking into a jog as she trailed Bauer through the glass and concrete of CTU. She overtook him only long enough to lead him to the room where she had arranged to have Chloe meet them. It made little sense to her for them to see each other again for the first time while the doctor was trying to get started examining him.

Bauer paused for a moment when his hand fell onto the doorknob, settling himself down; there was a small patch of sweat in the center of the back of his light gray dress shirt. Cassie withdrew as he opened the door to the windowless room Chloe had suggested. It contained a desk and a chair and a sofa which had seen better days sometime during the Carter Administration. The room, however, was empty of the most important feature and Cassie followed him in when she realized it was.

"We're early, Jack."

"I know," he replied, his tone short and conciliatory. He'd been hoping she would be, too, no doubt. He walked into the room and sat against the edge of the desk as Cassie shut the door and was glad for her gray sweater and slacks when her hand came away from the interior surface.

"Guess it's hard to get a maid with clearance," she muttered, rolling her eyes when Jack didn't respond. His eyes darted from hers down to the floor and back again when she made a far more welcome comment in his current mood. "I'll hunt her down if she's more than a few minutes," Gibson offered, staying near to the door so that she could slip out and give them some privacy as soon as her sister arrived.

"Thanks. Thanks for everything, actually."

Cassie closed the distance between them with a few long strides and leaned back against the desk beside him. "You are more than welcome, and if this is wrong, if you're not ready, you call me." He nodded mutely, looking up to meet her eyes. "And I have some news to share with you: Curtis wanted me to have observational experience to go with all the protocols in print, to see it all actually working. I will be riding point with Curtis when they bring you in to testify in Federal District Court against the people who were holding you. They've been left with no option but to plead guilty; their existence has now been disavowed. So, Mr. Bauer, it's now official, at least part of my job is to keep an eye on you."

Bauer dropped his gaze to the floor again, his arms folded up against his chest. "Then I guess I have nothing to worry about," he answered, his tone light and a smile lifting the corner of his mouth nearer to her, "Except one thing: I know I don't need to ask, but I'd feel better if ---. Will you please look after Chloe?"

A dozen humorous remarks leapt to mind as Cassie drew her next breath but she tabled all of them. "I will. I'm her big sister, and I am on permanent loan to you. You know that, right?"

Jack nodded, unclenching one hand to reach for hers; Gibson took it as she stood, "I'm gonna' go find Chloe."

"That won't be real hard, Detective."

Cassie stepped away from Bauer, her hand falling away from him slowly as he stood up, his expression unreadable as his gaze fixed on Chloe O'Brian. She stepped the rest of the way into the room, leaving the door open as she did. Her own expression, if anything, was more unreadable than Jack's as if both were afraid to give their feelings a means of release. Cassie glanced between them with a mixed sense of dread and relief, and the sisters briefly snagged hands as the elder one left the room and shut the door behind her.

Chloe let a small breath escape her at the sound of the door clicking shut but her eyes never left Bauer as she stepped forward, freed by the sudden sense of privacy. She stopped when he was within reach of her outstretched and shaking hands, smiling lopsidedly when he immediately reached for them. A full minute passed wherein they said nothing, merely absorbed the other's presence. It was Chloe who finally moved, using their mutual grip to spread open his arms. "You look great; you look so much better."

"Thank your sister. I just did as I was told."

"First time for everything, hmph?" Chloe's smile grew as she saw the one that came to Bauer's face. He remained where he'd returned, perched anxiously on the edge of the desk, his hands still holding Chloe's in a grip that he knew was too tight but couldn't bring himself to relax. From her own, however, he knew she had no interest in being released. The comfortable silence went on for a moment more before Jack's smile faded slightly.

"Are you okay? Did anyone here give you a hard time about… being gone with me?"

Chloe shook her head quickly. "No, I think Curtis or Bill must have… I don't know. Everybody's been really nice to me, but I guess they were kinda' glad that I helped you, too. Uhm, are you still having nightmares?"

Jack shook his head slowly, "Yeah, not so bad now. Winters said it would take a long time for them to taper off. I was still processing everything on levels she couldn't really reach or something. I don't know. I know it didn't seem as bad when I was… with…," the trailed off, smiling tensely at her for a moment before his gaze dropped to the bare concrete.

Chloe stepped in closer to him then, pulling her hand free and lifting his chin with a crooked finger. "Hey, you don't get to do that with me."

"Yeah, I know that, I'm sorry. What could be harder than what I had to share with you?"

"Winters can help you now - that's what matters." Chloe's hand moved down from his chin once she was sure he wouldn't turn his eyes from her again but she flinched when he next spoke, his eyes firmly on her own.

"That's not all that matters. You matter. I wouldn't have my life, I wouldn't have my mind without you, without having someone I could trust like I do you. I don't want to come out of this thinking it hurt you. I don't want that for you any more than you wanted it for me." There were tears in his eyes and Chloe felt a burst of energy at her gut at the sight of them, soothed only when her hand went to brush them back; he started at her touch and then leaned into it without reservation, his lower lip trembling. "I've missed you."

Chloe's mouth fell open as he spoke, her lips bending into a warped smile. "I missed you, too. The first couple nights you were gone I kept waking up to check on you."

A guilty but not displeased smile brushed over Bauer's face. "Maybe it worked. Some nights I thought you were there." At his words, Chloe offered him a guilty but not displeased look of her own and unable to stop herself, leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the nose, only Bauer was too quick, tilting his head so that she caught his lips instead. The change in target wasn't enough to surprise her much, however, and the kiss that would have just bounced off his nose lasted a few short seconds instead, until Bauer pulled back and lowered his eyes to the sight of their entangled legs. "I don't want to hurt you."

Over his head, Chloe nodded, reining in her own confusion and desire, reminding herself that he was reaching out to a familiar strength because in a few seconds he would be facing a circumstance reminiscent of the torture he had survived. "I know that, Jack. You gave up everything to save me from strangers; you'd never want me mixed up in anything where you could hurt me yourself." She looked down at him where he still sat on the edge of the desk, as if he had no desire to trust his legs just yet.

"If there was anything I did do, Chlo', you know I didn't mean to. I was confused. Sometimes… I still am."

"You don't need to be confused. I'm you friend, Jack. I'm here just like I was before," she answered, not adding that she had fought to keep from confusing herself, that she was doing so now as he confessed that his own turmoil still existed. Since it doubtlessly involved Audrey and since it was her last chance to speak to him alone, she took a breath and spoke again. "There's something you should know if all this is about what I think it is; I know when we're done in Medical that you're… leaving with… Audrey. So, I want you to know something: she and I had an argument when I got back. I was only trying to tell her that nothing ever happened, but she accused me of lying to you. When she did, I got so mad I couldn't think straight, and I… I hit her… really, really hard. I just wanted to be the one to tell you. Uh, I want you to know… I apologized to her."

Jack's eyes, which had never left her face, suddenly darkened and his teeth clenched for a moment behind the now hard line of his mouth. "If she accused you of lying to me, why apologize?"

xxxx

The look of surprise on Curtis Manning's face lasted only for a moment before becoming one of confusion. "What are you doing here?"

Cassie Gibson looked up at the tall black man with a sigh. She'd heard someone coming but she had no reason to bolt. This wasn't an area of CTU where she didn't have clearance to be but it was an area that was hardly ever occupied. "I brought Jack in early for his appointment. There was someone he wanted to see first."

Curtis slouched back against the wall across from her, his eyes on the closed and unmarked door. "That explains why Chloe isn't at her station. Why the big secret?"

"I don't know if some people would approve. I just thought they needed some time before he's in there with some doctor at him."

Curtis shrugged. "No argument from me. All this must've been pretty intense for them. Winters actually asked me to make sure that the rumor mill was grounded to a halt around here. You should know something though, Audrey was looking for me just before I left. Someone's bound to have pointed her in this direction by now."

Gibson stood off the wall at that, her eyes flashing. "Great, just great. Don't worry. I have no plans to make an issue--." Cassie fell silent as the woman in question came around the corner, noticing that Gibson's gaze went not to Curtis Manning as if they had been together in some guilty rendezvous but to the closed, windowless door next to which she stood. With more cleverness than Gibson wanted to give her credit for, Raines' eyes suddenly bore into her. "Chloe's not at her station and you were supposed to be on your way in here with Jack an hour from now but here you are in an almost abandoned part of CTU keeping watch on a door?"

Curtis stood to interpose himself between the two women when Gibson took a step but her only move was to place herself before the door in question and relax. "Please give them a little time, Audrey. If you care for him, you'll accept his need."

"What I understand is that Dr. Winters isolated him with Chloe for what was almost a month, only to have you come along and disappear with him after your little stunt with me. Accepting your apology was one thing, forgetting is another. What am I supposed to think about you arranging secret meetings for them? Jack barely knows you, so I don't know exactly what you said or did that he ended up…".

Detective Cassandra Carolyn Gibson lowered her head, looking up a moment later with an expression that caused Audrey Raines' voice to falter. Gibson didn't raise her own voice, didn't make a move that any observer could have found threatening but the words that she uttered caused the other woman to slowly withdraw. "The reason Jack is leaving with you today… is me. The reason he is in any condition to deal with his life at all… is my sister. Whatever happens now, whatever you might have with Jack, you owe it… to Chloe, so if you try go through that door it will be through me, and I promise you… that is impossible."

Audrey Raines, two shades paler in the dim light of the concrete corridor, licked lips that were suddenly dry and trembling. "Fine, but I suggest you remember my position here and be careful of anything that sounds like a threat. Curtis?"

Manning stood where he had all along, unmoving and expressionless. "I'm sorry, Audrey; I don't believe I heard anything."

Raines offered the dark-skinned man a glare he wouldn't soon forget and folded her arms tightly across her middle. She backed away from them both for several yards before turning and with quickening steps moved away from the guarded door.

xxxxx

Chloe stared down at Bauer as the question left his mouth, perplexed but fighting the urge to smile. "Why did I apologize? Gee, Jack, I don't know. I like my job. I shouldn't have lost my temper. I should have just figured she was upset. Instead I just acted like I was a kid getting picked on at school again. Audrey apologized, too, but look, it doesn't matter. I just didn't want her telling you first or anybody else if she'd said anything."

Bauer nodded and this time she let him get away with looking at the floor, "You'd never lie to me. I owe everything to that right now. It just seems nothing around me is easy for anybody. I'm sorry, too."

"That's silly, Jack. Forget it. I have now that I told you it wasn't your fault. What's important is you." She became quiet and glanced over at the closed door. "Are you sure you want me with you now?"

Jack nodded stiffly. "If you don't mind. I still have the dreams; there are things that make me flashback for a few seconds when I don't expect it. The lights, the table, the cold, I don't---."

Chloe silenced him by taking him in her arms and suddenly the cold and the vulnerability were gone. She was holding him still when her sister opened the door a crack. Cassie said nothing, a sad, wishful smile on her face as she looked at Bauer with his head tucked into curve of her sister's neck. She said nothing until they moved apart slightly. "Jack, they'll be ready for you soon." She smiled when he nodded brusquely, his hair tickling Chloe's throat.

Someone was thinking, probably Winters, when they got there. The temperature in the side room of Adamson's office was several degrees warmer than either Jack or Chloe expected, something Jack was grateful for as he stepped behind the screen to undress. He reappeared a few minutes later wearing a dark blue hospital gown that Chloe finished tying without a blink, unable to not wonder if there were cameras and where Audrey was if there were. She wondered if Jack was thinking the same as he glanced around the room; his gaze eventually settled on the gray door with its small square window marked "Exam Room 2" in red. His hand slid down Chloe's arm until it slipped into hers before he pushed open the swinging door.

It was darker inside than he expected, the glaring overhead light was off and the instrument trays tucked out of sight. The only thing that drew his attention was the exam table and that was covered completely in a clean, blue sheet that concealed any gleam of metal. The other thing that had changed was the doctor, the tall, well-built man that Bauer was expecting, Dr. Donald Adamson was absent. In his place was a plumpish, white-haired but sharp-eyed woman who greeted them with a small smile, wearing a tan blouse and black trousers but no white coat. "Mr. Bauer, I'm still Dr. Adamson. Donald is my son. When he suggested me to Dr. Winters, she thought it might be easier for you. I hope you don't mind."

Jack offered the blue-eyed woman, certainly old enough to be his mother, a small smile as he pulled himself up onto the covered table, "Thank you. It might. I guess you know…".

"What was done to you, yes, and the circumstances. I'll have to be thorough, Mr. Bauer, but I'll have you out of here as fast as I can. I won't touch you without you being told first and without being told why. Now, I understand this young lady has been with you through some difficult times. I'll try and not make this one of them. If either of you says "Stop", I will."

Jack nodded, his eyes on Chloe; secured by the reassurance he was now in her care as much as anyone's, a thought that filled his mind as he tightened his grip on her and then lay down, forcing himself to relax.

xxxx

"It seems you had Jack here very much on time."

Gibson looked up from the L.A. county map she'd been marking in pencil and offered Gwen Winters a suspicious smile. "Maybe a little early actually."

"And did he get a chance to talk with your sister?"

Cassie straightened from the monitoring desk in Medical that she was borrowing in the nurse's absence. "If I hadn't seen the change in Jack over the past few weeks I would think you had a crystal ball or my apartment was wired but, I guess you must just be good." She tried to bite off the small grit of irritation in her voice but failed.

"Do I detect a little resentment, Detective? Don't tell me, Department shrinks give you the stuff about humor covering up something dark and potentially repressed?" Winters offered, openly fishing but with a smile.

"Oh, yeah. Soon as I run out of jokes, it'll either be hostages or a shooting spree."

"How about this? You use humor to diffuse stressful situations by means that are a highly unexpected by most people dealing with the police or to reduce the impact and/or status of a dangerous person and/or situation thereby providing a revised perspective that makes them seem more manageable."

Cassie took a long breath and fell back in the chair she'd borrowed, offering the other woman a slightly stunned but genuinely impressed stare. "Okay, you are just good. Can you write that down so that I can hand it in during my next eval? Pro-rate it to three minutes and I'll even pay you whatever you charge an hour."

"I will, in fact, do that, but your money's no good to me." Winters felt a much needed smile come to her own face. "You've done some of my work with Jack, Detective, letting him channel his anger, helping him through the phase of therapy where much of that would have come on to me, restoring his ability to defend himself. After a few weeks, you got a name and stopped being just "Chloe's sister" every time he mentioned you."

"Well, I guess sparring wasn't something he could link up to Chlo'."

Winters nodded, her expression slowly becoming serious in a way that lifted Gibson's newly scarred eyebrow as she waited for Winters to speak. "I had reservations about letting him go with you; I knew what was happening but he separated the two of you himself and that was progress, too. However, I want to ask one more thing of you. I understand Mr. Bauer is going to stay with Audrey Raines when he leaves here."

"Yeah, they are whatever they are. He's got to sort that out, too. I guess I don't need to tell you since you asked my sister into this whole thing instead." Cassie sighed and remained silent about her exchange with Raines from a half-hour or so ago. "What do you need?"

"Jack is being examined by a very nice and very unthreatening doctor under his and your sister's say-so but I need to know, before we get to the last stage of his exam, if Jack has recovered his ability to defend himself beyond your ability to stop him… if he were truly violent."

Cassandra Gibson came slowly to her feet, the breath she'd been taking halted, her jaw slack for a long and calculated moment. "I assume… you've got a damn fantastic reason for asking so I'm going to be straight here; he hasn't, but even I know that having someone, even me, take him down… in there… Please don't make me change my mind about you, Doc."

"I'm sure it won't come to that. He's been doing well enough that I was comfortable leaving. Your sister is talking to him, he's a little more nervous than I hoped but in a few minutes something will happen that risks him having a flashback; if he becomes violent - it occurred to me that you might prefer to be there instead of me posting a couple of quarterback orderlies - which had been plan."

Gibson sighed with frustration, her eyes narrowing with displeasure. "All right, fine. I'm sorry. I'm not happy about the ambush, but I know you were trying to think of Jack. I'm glad you asked if that was the alternative. I can handle him."

"Let's get back over there. They'll almost be done."

The observation room was only three rooms away through one of the solid walls. Only a camera fed back to them here. Gibson turned her back to the feed after a glimpse of Jack flat on the table, her sister hovering in his sight as an older woman looked at the scars on his back. "Go on."

The doctor's lips thinned with distaste at what she was having to ask. "In about ten minutes when most of the exam is over, no matter how well intended, no matter how professional and caring, there will be two last parts of it that risk him flashing back. I found no evidence of sexual assault committed on Mr. Bauer, but he was unconscious when I was examining him so that doesn't mean there couldn't have been and the second to last thing Dr. Adamson will do is a prostate exam. If he was sexually assaulted that could cause the memory to resurface and send him into a panic. Secondly, if that goes on with just the normal amount of discomfort and embarrassment for someone in this situation, the next thing Jack will have to get through is someone coming at him with a very long, very sharp needle and a lot of his veins have been damaged; it may take more than one stick. If he starts to flash back, you'll nee---."

"Oh, son of a bitch… I am not having this conversation. I am… not… having this conversation." Cassandra Gibson sighed furiously and collected herself under the unhappy stare of the psychologist. "Fine. I know what I'll need to do, Doc,… if… You just tell me when to go in."

xxxxxx

His hand still holding Chloe's, Jack forced himself to hold in place the leg that Chloe had had to help him slide forward and panted his next few minutes of breaths; he lay on his side as Adamson finished and withdrew from him then gently cleaned away the generous amount of warmed lubricant. His head dropped as he heard her remove the exam gloves. Jack's abdomen was still clenched against the deep and slow if painless invasion, remaining so for several seconds after Adamson had pulled the gown back down and told him the worst was over and he could relax. He collected himself and sat up very slowly as the older woman walked away, long past even the need for embarrassment as far as Chloe was concerned. He nevertheless jumped and looked over her shoulder as the doctor left out of one door; surprised to see Cassie Gibson just in the opening, her eyes on the floor until Chloe spoke.

"Uh, exactly what the hell are you doing in here?"

Gibson shrugged, not answering her sibling but answering the question. "Winters asked me to come in, Jack, just to make sure you knew whatever hap… it would. Crap."

Jack stared at her for a moment and then gave her a thin smile. She was as cagey as he'd ever seen her, as unhappy as when he was leading her across whatever cliff they were on days ago. "I know what's left, Cass. It's all right, in fact… thank you. I almost killed someone trying to help me in here."

Chloe pulled him around then, "That was a long time ago now. You didn't know what was going on."

"And I might not again… and this time I'm a lot stronger."

Chloe looked away, a grimace on her face as the elder Dr. Adamson entered. Behind her was another woman, wearing a simple blue dress, her dark hair pulled back in a tight knot, a syringe and four vials in her hand and a patch of soaked gauze. Adamson finished approaching and stood on the opposite side of the table, "Jack, I need to immobilize your arm. You won't be restrained otherwise but we don't want you to hurt yourself in case this is too much for you. I'm told this young lady is the best CTU has for working on someone with vascular damage."

Jack looked at the nurse for a long, unsteady moment and then looked away, breathing hard, a slight knot back in his gut, and his eyes opting to bore into Chloe's as he lay down again and let her lower his shaking right arm out near his side. The subdued snap of the elastic band as it was tied around his bicep came only when the tremors had subsided. "Five minutes from now, we'll be done, Jack. Just look at Chloe." By the time Adamson finished speaking, the padded restraints were in place and, after a warning, he felt the fingers of the nurse traveling over his forearm, heard her voice if not the words as she spoke to him quietly, seeking a vein still easily capable of receiving the needle.

Chloe kept the expression of pain off her face as Jack's left hand gripped her own. It took her a few seconds to remember that she had another means of reaching him. Her hand fell to the inside of his left arm, stroking him carefully until she felt his grip relax slightly and the trigger began to take effect. As it did, she bent over him more closely, her forehead nearly touching his own as she spoke to him softly and quickly, filling his senses with her presence as he closed his eyes. Bauer's breathing slowed, quickening only slightly again when he felt the cold, wet touch of the alcohol swab and heard the nurse through Chloe's whispered litany.. "Jack, I'll try and get this the first time."

Keeping out of sight, Cassie still managed to move closer at the nurse's warning. She winced when Bauer did, his eyes wide and watering as they opened to lock on Chloe as she leaned over him, the hand of the arm she was stroking held to her chest, offering him the pounding of her own heart, reminding him again that he wasn't alone. It was a relief to Chloe more than a loss several tense moments later when he closed his eyes and found he could relax, listening to the chatter above him as he grew dizzy.

"Mr. Manning told me you were there for a year?"

"I was," Gibson answered, her head lifting, surprised by the nurse's query as she began paying attention to what she'd bee asked, "in northeast Kyoto."

"Really? I was born in the mountains two villages away."

xxxx

Chloe wasn't alone when Jack stepped out from behind the screen, dressed again but still slightly unsteady on his feet, yet not beyond his ability to deal with it. Cassie was standing next to her sister, a hand absently playing with her much smaller sibling's hair. Chloe looked terribly young suddenly but she was smiling and saying something he couldn't hear before she looked up, fixing his collar as he approached. He snagged her hand. "Thanks." He looked from Chloe to Gibson as she started to back out. "Both of you."

A touch of amusement worked itself helplessly back into Gibson's face. "It was nice not to be needed." She stopped her retreat and crossed her arms over her gray sweater. "My offer stands, and if you need to beat the hell out of someone I'll be around."

Jack shook his head slowly then stepped away from Chloe and embraced her sister. "Thank you again, not just for letting me beat the hell out of you, and for sharing your home, but for teaching me to laugh again, too."

Gibson's head dropped and when she lifted it, an expression of pure irony underlay the tears suddenly spattered around her eyes. "So you send me off crying? What kind of a deal is that? No wonder you didn't end up a hostage negotiator." He was still laughing when she pulled him down slightly and kissed his forehead, "Take care of yourself now, Kiddo." Her next words were barely audible but he heard them clearly nonetheless. "… and I will take care of Monkey-Butt. Oops." Giggling, Cassie stepped back and then past him, heading for the door, drawing a final smile from Bauer with a sharp and well-placed swat.

Chloe stared after her sister with a smile which flared into irritation seconds after Jack turned to face her, repeating the words he had heard Gibson almost say for weeks. "Monkey-Butt?"

"God, she told you that?"

"By accident,… I think." No accident - they were both smiling, even knowing he was about to leave. Chloe's blush faded slowly under his intense but friendly gaze. "I used to climb trees when I was little. Mom kept saying I was like a tree monkey, that they saw more of my butt than my face. Guess who stuck me with that name?" Chloe's eyes flashed upward and her arms folded, only to relax again a few seconds later and reach for him. "You're gonna' be fine, I promise. I'll be here though."

"You always are," Bauer answered, returning her embrace. "Chlo'. I don't----."

"Shut up, Jack. If we keep talking, I'll say something stupid." She mumbled, barely understandably into his shoulder. "I'll see you around here, okay, just like normal? Buchanan has your office ready again. You can start reorientation whenever you want. I told Kim you were… you were gonna' be at Audrey's."

"Sounds like you took care of everything," he replied, her hair brushing his lips. They said nothing more for a long few moments, merely standing in each other's arms, quietly lost in the memories of the past few months, making an unspoken, mutual attempt to put them in context. They were still there several minutes later when the door through which Cassie had left opened and Audrey Raines entered, her eyes turning away from them.

"Jack?"

Bauer opened his eyes and held onto Chloe a moment longer, moving in fact only when her arms fell away. "Hi."

"Do you need---?"

"No, it's fine," Jack answered, a touch quickly. "It's good to see you."

Chloe stared between the two of them for a moment and with a final glance at Jack headed for the doorway in which Raines stood. Stopping long enough to look up at the slightly taller woman "Take care of him," she muttered quietly then added with a smirk she couldn't quite stop, "now." The wince that flashed across Audrey Raines face was the image she kept in her mind as she walked out into the corridor and found her sister waiting for her, slouched against the wall. "No getting out of it this time, let's go get drunk."

xxxx

Jack stood quietly, offering Audrey a small smile as she entered the rest of the way into the room. "Hi."

"Hi. How did things go?"

"Little scary but I stayed in the here and now. Chloe talked me through it."

"No surprise there." Raines offered, taking a few steps closer. "Jack, I know this---."

"I'm exhausted. Can we go?"

"Of course." Raines came within reach of him and slid her hand down his arm, her eyes closing when his hand didn't respond to her own. Satisfying herself with taking his arm, she guided him back out of CTU.


	25. Chapter 25

The dream hadn't been bad, just enough to wake him but not transport him back, not enough to trap his mind in the web of fear that would exhaust him even as he slept. Too shaken to return to sleep, Bauer found himself before the refrigerator in Audrey's large, orderly, almost sterile kitchen. The cleaning woman had come at some point today while they were out getting him new clothes. Tomorrow he would be back at work, back behind a desk at CTU, back in the environment where he would feel the most useful again. Part of him knew he was using them just a bit, that he may not choose to stay, but more than anything he needed to have a purpose again and CTU was the quickest route. Making the arrangements with the LAPD had been the first time since returning that his life had not been about recovering from captivity and torture. It had given his mind a direction that went forward to correct the past instead of dwelling on it and revealing it.

The draft of cold air across his bare feet reminded him that it was escaping from the refrigerator. He took out the nearly empty container of milk and shut the door. As it closed he started slightly, now able to see Audrey standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She smiled at him slowly. "I thought I heard you. Couldn't you sleep?"

"I was, but...," he trailed off, hunting for a glass in the white finished cupboards until Audrey reached into the cupboard to his left, filling the glass she retrieved. She ran a hand over his back as she turned toward him, her fingers trailing over the thick, white cotton robe. "You had a nightmare?" He nodded, busy draining the glass. He clattered it back to the glass cutting board on the counter, unfocused, dull anger suddenly welling up from his gut.

"You don't know how tired you get of that question. How tired I am of … Damn." He turned away from the counter and leaned against it, his arms folded over his chest.

Audrey backed up a step as he turned. "Tired of what else?"

"Tired of people waiting for me to break, wondering when they're going to find me balled up in a corner. Winters told me I would need to be patient with everyone else as much as myself, to try and understand that they cared, that they were scared, too."

Audrey nodded, suddenly debating on whether she should move away but unable to do so regardless. "It is hard for me to have you here and not have done anything until now to help. When you left the safehouse, I thought I … Look, maybe we shouldn't go into this now." She looked away from Bauer with eyes that were suddenly strained; she didn't want to push him for explanations he couldn't give or didn't want to now. He'd only been here a few days, and he'd been reticent to speak about much of anything but settling in and preparing himself for another step back into his life, the life that she so very much hated.

"I know you were waiting for me, so was Kim. I couldn't choose between you." His arms folded more tightly as he spoke, his eyes darkening as he withdrew, facing the lie. He simply hadn't wanted to choose either one of them then. Jack frowned as Audrey turned him gently toward her, forcing his eyes to her own.

"It didn't matter which one of us you chose that day, but it was confusing that you chose a virtual stranger. Kim and I went for a drink after you left and listened to Barry offer explanations. Kim seemed to accept them but I never put the pieces together."

Jack took a long, slow breath, focusing on the edge of the counter biting into the small of his back as he searched for the words, ones that would explain without inflicting too much pain. He'd had enough pain, more than enough for himself and everyone around him. "Audrey, I've had you and Kim both tell me that there was so much about my life you couldn't stand. My own daughter looked me in the eye and told me something was wrong with me long before now. The day Paul… died you told me you loved me but that you couldn't deal with what you had seen, and then I had to die for you, too." It was Audrey who looked away then, her eyes avoiding his face as he continued. "When I was set up for David Palmer's murder and I knew you'd find out I was alive, I didn't know what to expect; I'd been forced into living a lie, hurt you again, to say nothing of Kim. Then before I could deal with any of it I was taken. You and she knew I was alive for a day, and then you didn't know if I was alive at all."

The tears that had been brewing in Audrey's eyes fell then, slipping down her face without shame in the dim light. "I gave the word that you'd been taken. I got my father to pull every favor he was owed. If there hadn't been so much turmoil with Logan being replaced we might have gotten to you more quickly."

"I knew that was part of what was taking so long. What the hell did I expect in the middle of an underground impeachment?" He shrugged and forced his arms to open, wrapping one around her as Audrey stepped closer. "But that doesn't matter now. I can't change what was going on then any more than I can sleep through the night now."

A frown of irony on her lips, Audrey let her head fall to his shoulder. "Chloe told me that there were nights when she sat and held you while you slept. It was hard to imagine, hard accepting that it was anyone but me. I blamed her when I should have been blaming myself."

Jack sighed, his breath ruffling through her hair as he glanced around the tan and white décor of the kitchen, his face darkening at the memory that came forth. "She did; but it wasn't, it wasn't some …. Audrey, she woke me up from a nightmare so bad I'd… I'd pissed myself. After she got done cleaning me up, holding me while I slept didn't seem like much."

Raines looked up at him then, her eyes narrowing. "I didn't let myself think about how weak you were when you went up there, how dependent you'd be. I just kept thinking how much less embarrassing it would be for you if I… and every time I spoke to Doctor Winters she would tell me how all of it was designed to help you let her in, that you would enter a state where she could help you if you learned you could be safe and exposed at the same time."

Jack turned from Audrey Raines, still keeping one arm around her but with too many thoughts now crowding his mind. Audrey had been his lover but for the months before Palmer had been killed he'd only had Chloe to link him with his life, he'd left with the strongest memory of Audrey the look on her face as he forced her husband's death. The intimacy that they had shared in body had little to do with the intimacy of trust he had shared with Chloe, trust that had let him agree to Winters' plan to begin; it was the same trust that had guided his steps into the bathroom the first time she'd washed him as if he were a child, that had made Chloe pull back each time he had, in confusion, drawn her into a kiss. Bauer finally returned to the moment, to the woman who was tucked under his arm. "I know it must have been hard for you to accept but Winters was right; it worked."

Audrey drew herself away from him then, shaking her head but keeping hold of his hand as she moved in front of him, her eyes struggling to catch his own. "Jack, I can't deny that; I just wish I could have been the one to help. I know you understand that."

"Of course, I do."

"Okay, thanks." Audrey responded, relief on her face as she took a step back, still holding his hand. "We should get back to sleep. They'll be watching you pretty closely tomorrow."

Jack nodded, following her back to the guest room. It was neat and neutral and spacious and the clothes they had come home with were still stacked on a table near the walk-in closet, waiting to be hung, tags still hanging off them. He looked away from them as he took off the robe he had put on over his undershirt and shorts and lay down, smiling as Audrey drew the sheet and then the gold blanket up over him. She sat on the side of the bed for a moment, the smile fading slowly as she looked down at him and dimmed the bedside lamp.

Jack registered her sobering expression with a pitying awareness that overtook him as she stood and drove him to catch her hand. "Hey… uh, you don't have to…"

Audrey turned back, her eyes falling to their hands as she returned his grip, a smile growing as her gaze then went to his face. Hesitant, wanting to be sure of what he was offering, she waited until he pulled back the covers himself before lying down beside him. Jack turned on his side as she did, his back to her, and sighed as she arranged herself behind him, tucking her legs against his and sliding her arms around his waist.

Jack sighed and took her hand when he felt her shaking, remembering that it had been nearly two years since they had been together, he'd forgotten what it was to have another body next to the length of his. She was warm; she still smelled of jasmine, her elbow still caught him at the curve of his hip, more sharply now that he was no longer at the same weight. It was all hauntingly familiar, a trip back into the past that his body's memory, so tormented before now, welcomed. Nearly another hour passed, however, with sleep eluding him, unable to stop his mind from going over again all that he would need to do at CTU. He shifted onto his back slowly, a look of apology on his face when Audrey opened her eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay. Are you thinking about tomorrow?"

"I can't stop."

Audrey lay still for a moment, her expression unreadable as he held her hand against his chest. "You can't wait to get back, can you?"

"I can't wait to have a life again that has some point," he answered her, his tone unexpectedly bitter even to his own ears. He looked away from Audrey when she pulled herself up and looked down at him.

"There's more than one way to do that, Jack," she responded, her eyes struggling to catch his own in the near dark.

"I know that," he answered her, too quickly he knew. "I don't want to go back in the field, but I can still make a difference there."

Audrey said nothing, merely lay back down and untangled her hand from his to stroke his forehead. "I know you can," she replied biting off the rest of what she wanted to say… the quiet urge to finish with 'but why do you have to?'.

xxxxx

"How about two units at each intersection arriving at 11 o'clock and holding position until 12:45? Egress will be simpler; the federal marshals will be waiting to move them into an armored transport."

Cassie Gibson looked down at the aerial maps of the Federal District Court on North Spring Street, marking the ten intersections Curtis had referenced. "I can put in a request for those. Vehicles aren't a problem but we may have to call in some off-duty manpower and you may want to put at least one unit in position on the 101. It cuts right behind the courthouse or we could just double the patrols."

"Do the latter. We don't need to overkill this. All of our intel still points to these guys being listed as nonexistent now."

Chloe looked up from the sheets that were in front of her, even tighter aerial shots with several marks on them, each accompanied with a string of letters and numbers. "As soon as you know the approach, let me know so I can isolate the cameras. There are tons of them around the Court House. I gotta' to narrow that down."

"No problem. Let's go with an approach coming in away from the 101," Curtis replied, standing near the even larger projection map of the area around the Court House, one that also showed the gleaming white tower of City Hall across the street. "But we still need a cordon that covers that ten intersections from North Broadway over to--," Manning fell silent as the door to the glass-walled strategy room opened, letting in Bill Buchanan and a tense but smiling Jack Bauer.

Chloe felt an uncalled for blush coming to her face and an inexplicable sense of relief and pride. "I didn't know you were coming back this soon."

"I've been cleared for light duty," Jack offered, working to take his eyes off of her before it became difficult for both of them, his gaze after it left her darted around the room and settled on the scattering of maps and dailies on the table. "I wanted in on this."

Bill Buchanan offered the younger man a small, one-sided smile. "I didn't see any reason why not. Jack is going to handle the CTU personnel distribution."

Curtis sighed quickly. "Good, because I've got my hands full with access control. We can only isolate so much in that area, and there's no airspace control. You're the pilot, any suggestions?"

Jack sat down at the table, pulling the maps in front of Gibson to himself, "One helicopter at about 2000 feet should give us a fluid observation platform. We could put snipers in the City Hall tower but it shouldn't be necessary. There's no change on the dailies to support that, is there?"

Chloe looked up from the reports that had come in within the last hour, satellite and transactional monitoring from the overseas financial lines, intercepted phone and computer communications, even what they suspected were coded messages submitted for publication in domestic Asian-language periodicals, none of which had revealed anything to her or the rest of the analysts on her team. Knowing that they were securing the court hearing for the people who had taken and repeatedly assaulted Jack Bauer had kept all of them tied to their computers for hours more than they would have been otherwise, some of them out of terror of what would happen if they should fail their lead analyst. "There's nothing, Jack, and Martha Logan has called in a few favors to keep an ear out in Washington if anything crosses channels there. So far they're staying with the story that this was a rouge branch of the Chinese Triads they were chasing themselves."

"Do you know which Chinese mafia they were blaming?" Cassie interjected, stopping her sister's reply.

Jack, sitting next to her, answered first, "They never said but I guarantee you it's not them; I know who took me; I know they were under government orders."

Cassie frowned sharply, an expression so unnatural to her face that both Jack and her sister were suddenly wearing the same smile, one that faded when the next words left her mouth. "Just because they didn't take you then, doesn't mean they won't be the ones trying to cut you down now. Their own government's money is just as good as running vice rings and drugs up from Tijuana."

Chloe huffed suddenly, offering her sibling one of her most heartfelt glares. "And you were worried you wouldn't fit in? Congratulations, you're as paranoid as the rest of us."

A flurry of restrained smiles darted around the room as Gibson's return scowl at her sister faded. It was gone completely when she looked across the table from Jack to Bill Buchanan. "I have a few contacts at the dojos in Chinatown. I'll see what I can find out on the ground."

Buchanan nodded, acknowledging her but it was only a pause in the subtle observations he had been making of Jack Bauer since they'd arrived. He kept his face quiet as the conversation continued, moving on to what could be done to halt or limit the amount of pedestrian traffic in the area. None of what had been done to Bauer had taken away his ability to strategize; the only difference he could detect was Jack's tendency to address Chloe first when he spoke and focus on her occasionally to the exclusion of all else. It took a few minutes of watching them both to realize that Chloe was following the same pattern, speaking first to Jack before expanding her attention to the others - despite the fact that this would be the first field operation where her own sister would be on the ground with them. A look at Curtis when Jack and Chloe's heads were both down confirmed that Manning also knew he was on the back burner.

Jack sat back an hour later, shuffling the stack of papers that had collected before him as well, all of them marked in red or blue to stand out from the black ink. "Do we shut down the parking garage under City Hall?"

Curtis shook his head doubtfully. "No, I checked. What they'll allow is for us to do a search of it empty and screen any vehicles coming in or out. Right now we've got a two block cordon that'll take place at the time of the hearing. They'll only let us snarl things up so much."

Bill leaned forward as the black man finished. "Jack, Chloe, there's one other thing you'll want to know, Agent Griffin has asked to be part of the team that escorts Jack in there. He felt rather honored to have had your help up in the hills." Buchanan held back a smile at the look that went between them, one that spoke of confidence from O'Brian, gratitude from Bauer, and from both the unspeakable trust that locked out everyone else. Jack turned from the analyst to nod to Buchanan. "I don't have his training profile here."

"There's no chatter circling about your first public appearance, Jack. This should be low-profile enough for him to run on the first team. The federal marshals will be sending us their transit plans as soon as they've decided where and when to bring in their prisoners. The plan now is to have you both arrive at the same time to narrow any window of opportunity and double the force available to deal with it if something does go down."

Curtis turned off the overhead, his eyes circling the table. "I guess we can't do anything more until the federal marshals get back to us. Chloe, get what we've laid out over to them. Cassie, when can I expect confirmation on your end?"

Gibson stood up, unable to bite back a smile as she watched the back of Bauer's head once she was on her feet. "Late tomorrow. To get twenty cruisers manned, I'll need to draw off duty uniforms from more than one division."

Chloe looked up at her sister. "If you stay here about an hour, I'll get the funding transferred in from Homeland Security to cover the department expenditure. Karen Hayes has greenlighted anything we submit to get these bas---, sorry, the… detainees put away for good."

Gibson frowned with distaste and collected her papers. "Where are they sending them?"

Curtis smiled thinly and caught the tall woman's eye, "Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Their last little mission is going to cost them the rest of their lives." Curtis bent low over the table as he gathered up his own set of papers. His movement caught Jack's eye just before he straightened and he offered his friend a confirming, grateful nod as he left out the door into Operations. Bill Buchanan came to his feet as well, a hand extended toward Bauer.

"Welcome back, Jack. We've missed your input almost as much as yourself."

Jack came to his feet as he took Buchanan's hand, shaking it firmly and nodding his thanks, "It's good to be back, Bill. Thanks for taking the chance on me."

"I never thought it was much of one. We would have waited as long as it took but you do what you need." With that Buchanan left, the quick smile fading from his face as he turned his mind to other matters. Jack's gaze followed him out the door, catching Gibson's as she headed for it.

"It's good to have you on board."

"I'm your fault, remember that. My would be politician chief will be glad to know you're Level Red on the Homeland Security Rainbow of Terror." She offered him the usual teasing smile and followed Curtis out of the room, leaving Jack and Chloe alone. All too aware of the glass walls around them, Chloe stood, her lips turning upward. "I can't believe this; I'll be running comms on my insane sister."

"How much safer could I be?"

Chloe smiled then scowled when she realized he wasn't completely joking then forced another smile. "Are you doing okay?"

Jack walked around the table and closed on her, stopping within a few feet and leaning against the wall. "I still don't know what to say to that. Today felt right, being here. It's the first time I've been here and not been in somebody's fishbowl. I just had to tell myself that it was about someone else once in while, that I wasn't the one these people were being punished over. …And then I'd have a few minutes where I couldn't avoid remembering what they did, that it was me tied to the table or puking up my guts." His eyes bored into her own suddenly, his lips thinning as his jaw clenched tight. As she had through so many restless nights, she heard the subtle change in his breathing. "I don't know if you knew, but you got me through those minutes."

Chloe felt the blood rush to her face and couldn't keep the smile from her lips. "I'm glad. I didn't know exactly but… I knew you needed…," she sighed sharply, her lips taking on a familiar twist the brought a surge of warmth in the pit of Bauer's stomach. "I have to get started on this stuff. Forget watching for you; Mom'll end up on Oprah for killing me if anything happens to my idiot sister."

Jack smiled, trying to imagine the mother that would have brought up both of them. His eyes stayed on her long after the smile faded and his eyes darkened as he reached out, taking hold of her arm clutched around the bundle of papers. "Chloe, I don't---."

"Then don't, okay, Jack? You don't need to… whatever. Just be okay. Do what you always do; don't let them win." She backed away from him slowly enough that he could tell she was reluctant to do so and his hand fell even more slowly back to his side.

"You, too, okay?" After that, Bauer stood silent, holding onto the smile she still had for him as she backed away and out of the room, turning around before he could see the tears that burned their way out of her eyes.

xxxxx

Dinner was cold by the time Audrey Raines stood to gather the plates from their very later supper, picked over and uneaten on her part in contrast to the empty plate that Bauer offered her. "I guess I don't have to worry about your appetite."

"More about your own, it looks like," Jack replied, his eyes on the half-eaten steak, remembering seconds later that there was no dog to dispose of it. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, really. Just a lot on my mind. You had a good day… didn't you?" The smile on Raines' face was forced into her voice but Bauer seemed not to have noticed.

"We worked out the security arrangements for bringing me in to testify against the people that held me. Once it was on the court docket, where I would be had to become public knowledge."

Audrey backed away from the table, blowing out the two white tapers on the table between them. "Jack, you know you don't have to do this. No one would blame you if gave a video-taped testi---."

"I want to look them in the eye, Audrey." Jack came to his feet, his voice tearing into her in a way that caught them both off-guard. "I want them to remember me as something more than a piece of meat they tried to butcher. Can you try to understand that?" He took a step back from her and covered his face with his hands. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes wide, Raines stared at him for several seconds, and then finished gathering the rest of the dishes. "No, I am. I just thought that the last thing you'd want to be is reminded that much of what you went through."

Bauer shook his head slowly, his eyes everywhere but her face as the next words came. "Audrey, I spent the last three months just beginning to accept what they did to me, to my body, to my mind. I know it wasn't your choice but… you couldn't be there while I did. Winters told me it was the only way I could move on and now that it's part of me I want justice, and trust me, I'll have it."

Audrey stood frozen, her mouth hanging open for a moment before she swallowed and nodded, slightly cowed by the first signs of temper he'd expressed since he'd been back, what little she'd shared of that, at least. "All right, and I guess for you that means being part of the plan to get you in and out of the Federal Court. Okay, that's fine. I'm glad you're involved then. I'll be back in a few minutes." Hands full of dirty dishes she retreated to the kitchen and, standing numbly, Jack listened to the sounds of her filling the dishwasher and opening and closing the refrigerator. Her color back to normal, she reappeared with two glasses in her hand, both filled with red wine.

"I'm sorry. I know you have a right to face these people; it's people like you who make justice work. You're the last person who shouldn't have it." She offered him the wineglass and was relieved when he took it with a twitched, lopsided smile. She took the hand not occupied by the glass and led him slowly into the master bedroom, shedding her heels on the pale tan carpeting. She sat down on the bed, Bauer following; they talked of nothing in particular they finished the wine then turned off the lights. Audrey took the glass from him and sat it on the nightstand, glad for the chemical help to relax as she began to undress. Jack, flushed now not by anger, slowly followed suit. She lay down when she was wearing only her pale pink bra and panties, her eyes wandering as Jack lay down beside her and backed into her arms again. She'd come to accept this new preference. Ever since he'd returned to her bed, he'd not faced her, had wanted to be held from behind, a seemingly unconscious desire to literally have someone at his back. She accommodated him, her arm wrapping around his waist once more.

It might have been the wine; it was probably the fact that she wanted to make up to him her assertions from an hour or so before, and the fact that he'd reminded her with unintended bluntness that she'd been denied any part in the most difficult stage of his recovery. She realized he was still awake after a few minutes and she reached the hand beneath his neck back toward him, stroking his forehead lightly to gain his attention.

"Jack?"

Bauer turned his head back toward her. "Yeah?"

Audrey wet her lips and pushed herself up farther off the pillow to make sure her voice wasn't muffled. "I read… most of… the file that they sent back with us, the one Dr. Winters prepared. I know that you're still… capable of…. being with me. I didn't want to push things if you weren't ready but then I thought, maybe you weren't sure if I…," she fell silent as Bauer turned onto his back, lifting up so he could slide his arm beneath her. His eyes were closed and when they opened they went to the ceiling.

"It's been so long, I don't…".

Audrey laid a finger across his lips. "Let me help. If it's not tonight, then some other, okay?"

Jack nodded against the pillow, his eyes closing again, his neck tightening as Audrey's hand untangled from his own and traveled slowly down his stomach, her lips brushing across his face as she did. She kept talking, her words as blur as her hand reached its goal, slowly and carefully sliding under the waistband of his shorts. His breath quickened for a moment as it did, and she paused, laying her hand flat against his stomach and feeling it clench. In the darkness she could see the tiny pinpricks of dim light coming from the tears seeping out from beneath his eyelids.

"Jack, do you want me to stop?"

Bauer lay still for a few moments, breathing a bit harshly, his voice almost silent when he finally spoke. "No, just… just…don't. Please…"

"We'll go slow." Raines answered, close to his ear. Unseen, she let herself frown in frustration as she spoke, unhappy that his eyes were still closed, hoping that it was because he was blocking out every sensation but her hand. Wishing he might open his eyes to watch her, she coiled up on her knees and reached down to his hips, sliding off his briefs slowly, letting him set the pace as he moved to accommodate her. She tossed them to the floor and lay back down, lowering herself next to his ear. "Trust me, Jack. Whatever happens we'll be fine." With that spoken, her hand fell to his abdomen, stroking him and feeling it knot up again before her fingers continued down, slowly coming to cradle his manhood. A tremor went through Bauer at the first touch of her fingers on the thin and sensitive flesh. She held back to let him adjust, then slowly wrapped her hand around his length. Ever so carefully, her fingers began to pulse against him. It was then that he cried out softly but at the same time his hand behind her back pulled her closer.

"Oh God."

"Are we okay?"

"Yeah."

It took a few minutes more of gentle encouragement before she felt him begin to respond, his breathing quickening as he firmed in her hand. Jack turned toward her, onto his side, raising his leg and sliding over her hip to expose himself more and give her even greater access. The tears came freely as she worked, tears of relief and fear as her touches finally prepared him completely for her. Jack held onto her as if he might otherwise drown, unable to form a single thought as he pressed himself against her fingers, sweating now, his hips occasionally jerking spastically. He followed as she sat up, her right hand moving from between his legs to join the left at his waist. Audrey's hands traveled over him slowly, finally looping carefully under the hem of his undershirt and sliding the thin fabric up, leaving him naked. Bauer looked up at her then, his eyes wide and vacant, irrationally innocent, and somehow telling her he was waiting. For what she didn't know -- so Raines continued to move slowly, rising up to remove her own underwear and then settling on her knees to straddle his lap. Hesitant at first but with a renewed confidence, he at last reached up, touching her breasts as if they would vanish and then leaning forward to offer her a kiss.

She let him take her mouth slowly, then moved back to stroke his temple with her chin. "It's all fine, Jack. Everything's fine. Let go. Let yourself go. Don't be afraid." Her smooth hands, resting on his shoulders, began to travel down his back, their touch lingering and warm, but as they slid between his shoulder blades, their slow, distracting descent, as if to contrast her own words, suddenly stopped.

Audrey's new position had brought her above him and Jack leaned forward, preparing himself for her final and most intimate grasp when he realized she was hovering above him for other reasons than patience and gentleness. He felt the tears a moment later, falling like scant rain on his back as he leaned toward her, tiny pricks of cold, chilled by their short journey through the air. In contrast, he felt the heat radiating from her hands as they lifted from his back and hovered above the scars that had been designed as well as inflicted, their ridges deep enough for the letters to be readable even in the semi-darkness. Jack started slightly when her touch finally came, and then stiffened when he felt her hands recoil away from his flesh just as quickly. Jack sighed once and quickly but didn't look up.

Audrey bit her lip and pulled his head into her chest for a moment before tilting his face toward her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…. Son of bitch, Jack. No wonder you want to see them sent away."

Bauer said nothing, fighting the painfully fading knot of energy in his gut, the scent of his own sweat mixing with the musky scent that had once comforted and empowered him. He drew a few long breaths, looking across the dimness of the room. "I guess I should have told you; I couldn't think."

Audrey backed away from him slightly, angry and disappointed with herself and enraged with his torturers. "Shhhh… I'm sorry. Just relax." Her hands went to his chest and moved slowly downward again. Jack sat still and unresponsive as her fingers carefully explored him again. He could sense her holding back after a while, her stroking and probing finally yielding nothing but a few frustrated winces and grunts from him. Jack's breath began to catch and after several long moments his hips tilted back, away from her touch, the clenching in his stomach now unpleasant. Audrey's hands withdrew slowly, regret and apology in every last moment of her stroking and fingering. Jack lay down again, careful to face her, letting his head be guided to her shoulder… but not meeting her eyes as he settled for the sensation of the light entwinement of their naked bodies. Audrey's arm folded back beneath his neck, her fingers stroking his forehead. Beneath her touch his mind was a jumble of thoughts and feelings again, of betrayal, of anger, of revenge, of pity and sorrow and frustration, and for all his thoughts unaware of why he was rubbing his legs slowly together, eradicating the lingering feel of the hands that had been between them. As he at last drifted off to sleep, his final thoughts were of the near stranger who had gently stroked his scars in retroactive comfort and the woman who had cared for him without seeing them at all.


	26. Chapter 26

"That should be the last of them. Every time I try packing light… well, you can see for yourself," Gwen Winters gestured helplessly at the five suitcases, all but one full of papers, reference materials, and bound reports that she had had transferred to CTU.

Jack Bauer hefted the last of them into the back of the black SUV, laying it flat atop two others and bringing the restraint webbing down overtop of it. The task finished, he stared at the stacked luggage, wondering which held her interpretation of his state of mind and ability to cope; he stood unmoving long enough that she sat down before him on the open bumper, the gold buttons on her dark brown overcoat glimmering in the autumn bright sunlight. "I guess this is the last time I can ask what's on your mind face-to-face but I am leaving you my number."

Bauer stood unmoving a moment more, his eyes focused on the distance before giving in to the offer Winters had made. He sat down on the bumper next to her, hands gripping his denim-clad knees. "I want to thank you but nothing I can think of to say seems like enough. Three months ago I couldn't imagine being anything more than a burden here, someone they'd let stay out of pity and then find a polite way to get rid of."

"They might lose more than you would if they did that. I saw the preliminary protocols that you laid out for the liaison post with the LAPD… long before you even left the safehouse. They were precise, insightful, a little overcautious from what I understand after going over them with Bill; you were determined to keep those officers as safe as possible. But I get the feeling there's more to this than not knowing how to thank me, am I right?"

Jack stared at the asphalt that even with an October chill in the air was radiating heat up to his face, feeling the added heat of a blush start across his cheeks. He worked hard to keep his voice audible when he spoke. "Yeah."

Winters let him sit for a few seconds more and then, noticing the blush, rested her hand on his own, "Jack, normally I don't push more than necessary, but this time, unfortunately, I have a plane to catch to D.C. And… whatever you need to share won't sound any different to me two or five or ten minutes from now, so… deep breath… good…, again… count to three, let it go."

Bauer held the breath just for a second longer, then his eyes closed. "Last week, Audrey and I, we tried to make love but it… it didn't happen."

Winters nodded slowly and leaned back, her hands folding onto the angle of her lap. "Was it a physical issue for you?"

Bauer shook his head. "No, I was… ready. Everything was fine and then she suddenly moved to where she could see the scars, the ones they cut into me: she froze, and she tried, but she couldn't even touch them."

Unseen, Winters scowled. Her sigh did not go unheard, however, the gentle sound prefacing her reply. "I'm sorry, Jack, I am; that must have been a terribly painful moment. What happened after she withdrew?"

Bauer's blush deepened. "That was when I… I guess you could say 'lost interest'. She tried again, nothing happened. She apologized; I pulled away then but I just went to sleep and let her hold me."

Winters glanced up at his choice of words but kept silent. Bauer was obviously doing his best to be as patient with everyone else as they were being with him. "Have you been sleeping in the same bed since?"

"Sleeping, yeah. We haven't tried again. I guess she's waiting for me."

"That's reasonable and you should look for her to offer you some subtle clues that she'd like to try again, some she might not be aware of herself. Audrey has memories of this part of your life that she is very unhappy to have. I'm sure she wasn't rejecting you, just the pain she saw, and her fear that it would touch your lives again. I suppose she had hopes of you leaving this life as soon as you could after what you went through but, and we've talked about this, you need to put your imprisonment and what was done to you into perspective now. It will always affect you, hopefully in fewer and fewer ways as time goes on, but you need to counterbalance it. For you that means being here, and regaining the resources to protect yourself and the people you love."

"I tried to explain that to her. I always tried to protect her from what can go on out there. When we were in D.C. I hardly mentioned the life I had had here at all."

Winters nodded but the tone of her voice when she spoke again was somehow less remote and analytical. "Audrey's from a far more sterilized environment where work like this is concerned. Over the course of her father's career, I'm sure what she would have seen would have been the prelude and end results, not the people, this sort of work broken down by the numbers. Your relationship began when you weren't in the field; seeing you pulled back into it, forcing her to think you were dead, knowing you were alive for a day and then having you taken, has had an incredible toll on what she always imagined your relationship would be. If there weren't that history, and the personal incidents a few of those days contained, I would have given more consideration to using her as my facilitator."

Bauer pinched at his nose and finally looked at the small doctor. "I need to be here at least until I testify at the sentencing hearing. I explained that to her and I thought she understood. The DOD doesn't have any reason to be involved in the arrangements so she feels left out, I suppose."

"That's one operation, though, and as far as CTU is concerned, as worried as they are about giving the bastards a proper send-off, it's a relatively easy job compared to what you all usually face. Has Bill asked you for help on anything else?"

"To finalize the other LAPD liaisons, screening the other two shift leaders besides Detective Gibson, and tasking out CTU personnel to gain field experience."

"Sounds like they might have you in mind as a protocol instructor. Have you told Audrey what you've been doing?"

"Yeah, I thought being inside, she'd be happy about it. I don't want to go back out in the field. I told her that."

"Did you tell her about your work outside of the hearing preparations before there was a sexual issue?"

"I've told her everything just as soon as I knew, since the day I went to stay with her."

Winters sat for a moment, her lips drawn tight against her teeth. "She knows you're being drawn back into CTU, even if it's not here but on a campus of it somewhere, that the part of your life that has caused you the most pain seems to be more of lure than whatever she wants or can provide. It's understandable she's disappointed but whatever you do has to be your choice. The goal of everything I've done is to have you reach a point where you can make your own choices, and accept that no one has power over you any longer that you don't give and that only given freely. I think that's part of what happened when… things didn't… happen for the two of you."

"You mean I… I made a choice not to be with her?"

"Not a willful one but there would have been more than just your physical reaction to her sudden reticence. You've been through a great deal since we were able to bring you around; Audrey wasn't part of that. Your body reacted unconsciously to protect you and your progress, to prevent your involvement with her from deepening. I doubt this is a permanent situation, Jack; don't worry."

Bauer's expression became troubled at her words and he shook his head lightly. "I didn't feel like I… Doc, I don't want to think of Audrey as someone I have to… to protect my---," his voice trailed off, the confusion overcoming him, caught between the clinical truth and the feeling that he was betraying Raines by accepting it.

Winters glanced at her watch and knew she'd have to move her flight back. She bit her lip and waited to speak until Bauer looked her in the eye again. "Jack, meaningful sex is, at its heart, the ultimate physical act of trust and of acceptance; it must have taken a great deal of both for you to offer not only your body but your fears to her. I'm sorry that she wasn't ready as well when the time came but the people around you are still adjusting, too. I also know I may have compromised your relationship by isolating you with Chloe but Chloe was the only person you had no reason to doubt, who had most directly supported you in several extreme circumstances, and who didn't have an agenda of her own concerning you."

A smile eased the lines around Jack Bauer's eyes as they closed again, tears slowly sliding down his cheeks without a trace of shame. "I haven't told you this but I couldn't have gone up to the safehouse with anyone else. She worked so hard to make everything easy. I wasn't scared to tell her anything. I wasn't worried what she'd think about what happened, what she'd think about me. I wasn't afraid of the truth and, when it was time I wasn't afraid of sharing it."

Winters rested her face in her hands for a moment then reached into the pocket of her pale green suit and pulled free one of the tissues ever-present in her pockets, just in time to watch Bauer drag a sleeve across his eyes. Smiling slightly, she sniffed and refolded her coat. "That was what I was assuming I'd hear when I profiled her. I reassured Audrey whenever she asked - about Chloe's motives and what I could determine of your responses to one another, through Martha and Detective Gibson and then my own observations. As I said there was a risk that your relationship with Audrey could be compromised but, I thought, a greater risk that you'd not recover as well without being immersed in a safe, uncomplicated environment that I didn't believe she could provide. I had to weigh one against the other and hope for the best."

Jack stared at her for several moments, calm now and once again exhausted but having learned he would quickly bounce back from the drain of talking with Winters, even if he had invited himself into an impromptu session. He stood up from the bumper and she followed, watching him as he slammed the hatch and turned to face her. "About that weighing one thing against the other and hoping for the best, I've been there. You did fine."

Winters felt a bit of weight lift from her at his words, "Thanks. That makes it worth it. It's not easy on the other side of that desk some days, but I know it's very little compared to what I see you people go through out there."

Jack shook his head dismissively. "Don't sell yourself short, Doc, not to me."

Winters smiled up at him then glanced at her watch. "How about just call me, Gwen, Jack? Because, actually, as of this morning, your file is back with Doctor Colson. I'm sure his ego will bounce back once I'm out of his… lair. And now that you're not my patient… come here, you." Jack stepped into her outspread arms with a smile and held her for a long moment, sighing gently into her hair. She kept hold of his hands when she finally stepped back. "That doesn't mean you can't call me, but I don't, I seriously don't, think you'll need to."

Jack returned her smile, "Next time you're in L.A. though…?"

"I'll call you."

He nodded carefully and backed away a few steps. "I'll send your driver up. I'd take you myself but… I … have a long day of work ahead of me."

"Enjoy it, Jack, and take care of yourself." With that, Gwen Winters turned away, climbing into the passenger seat of the SUV to stare out at the mountains in the distance, until they blurred behind the tears she finally let fall.

xxxx

The driver of the armored CTU vehicle taking him home stopped at Bauer's softly spoken command, watching with him as the small white truck backed out of Audrey's driveway, "Pacifica Palate" stood out in black, scripted lettering on the side. Jack's gaze followed it past several palm trees and then he turned to thank the young man next to him, only to find him grinning slightly. "Looks like you might be headed into something special."

Bauer offered him a flickered smile in return. "We'll see. Thanks, Colin." With that he was gone, walking up the wide steps and finding the door already open. Audrey couldn't have helped but hear the distinct roar of the large, stationary engine outside the house. When he reached the dining room - a full course dinner, complete with two long glowing silver tapers, was already on the table, but with three places set and not two. Fighting with the corkscrew, dressed in a short, white sheath, Audrey emerged from the kitchen and waved him to sit at the head of the table before the still covered dinner. His nose was already announcing it concealed chicken of some sort and the bottle of wine was, indeed, white. He sat down with a smile and looked at the three plates. "What's the occasion; who else is coming?"

Audrey only smiled, making a show of pouring the wine that distracted him from the sound of being approached from behind. Two small hands suddenly covered his eyes and he snapped around, gasping, his hands seizing the wrists of the owner. He recognized the feel of them almost as quickly as Kim Bauer identified herself and caught her balance. Still seated, Jack pulled her into a slightly too tight hug, shaking for a moment, his head buried into her chest. She kissed his crown with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, Dad. I thought it would be a nice surprise."

His head remained against her as his breathing slowed. "It is, Honey, just not one I want from behind yet, okay?"

Kim shook her head as they released each other. "Okay." She sat down to his left, still holding his hand for a moment, her pink and black dress shimmering in the candle light. Jack knew he'd never seen her look more beautiful and shared a quick smile with Audrey. "I guess I'm a little underdressed," he commented, looking down at the simple tan pullover and dark slacks he wore.

"No, not a bit," she reassured him. "Tonight, we wanted to look good for you." With that, Audrey sat down and shared a smile with Kim that drew a grateful blush from Bauer.

"You don't look good; you both look great," he offered and both women smiled.

They ate at a leisurely pace, Jack feeling the wine a bit more than he ever remembered before, an elegant spread centered around a main course of chicken marsala and a crème brulee that Kim lit with a giggling yelp. They talked over nothing, over the construction of a new overpass, over the neighbor cat that had mastered getting into the crawlspace, and the fire that was now blackening the sky north of the Valley. It was preciously normal for Bauer, so much so that he often found himself staring, like a stranger, at the two women before him, and sometimes himself when he saw his reflection in the silver-domed tray. More than once one or the other of them would shake him out of a brief reverie, catching him staring at air between them.

They passed two hours around the table before Audrey guided them into the sitting room, its lights as dim as the candles had been. It was spacious but seemed cozy, the pink drapes giving an Old World glow to the room. Jack sat down in the armchair, not wanting to be too relaxed and still feeling the effects of the wine. He looked up at Kim as she sat down next to Audrey on the paisley sofa. "Barry, didn't come with you?"

Kim shrugged. "He's at a conference in Seattle or Salt Lake City. It starts with an "S" is all I remember." She shrugged in response to her father's smile; she could tell he still had his doubts about the man he'd met the day of Palmer's assassination and not seen since. Her smile dimmed slightly as she watched him, her eyes suddenly flicking over to the older woman as if waiting for some cue.

Jack saw the nervousness that suddenly entered both women, more easily perhaps because it had been so much of his own mentality since he had left the safehouse, so much so that Gibson had usually announced herself before coming into a room and Doctor Adamson had had to warn him of every touch. He worked past the impression now with effort, remembering what Winters had said to him a scant few days before, that everyone else was adjusting to his return and what had happened to him. They had a right to worry; hell, he should be grateful they were.

Audrey finished her wine and put the glass well aside, as if she could reduce its effect by distancing the empty glass from herself. She gave Bauer a soft smile that didn't quite make it to her eyes as she watched him. "I can't take credit for it but I'm glad we could all have a great dinner together. I can't tell you how I've missed that. I know you must have, too."

Jack forced himself to relax, his eyes going from Raines to his daughter with whom he had shared no word of his imprisonment to say nothing of what had been done to him. Raines was only acknowledging in front of her that he had been taken and held, nothing else. "I missed a lot of things, but now isn't the time. I just want to enjoy you both. Can we do that, please?"

Audrey relented a bit, her posture relaxing but her eyes leaving his face. "Of course. I just want to be sure that we keep enjoying times like this. I don't want to go back to the fear any more than you want to go back to what happened."

Jack nodded, experiencing a bit of ironic frustration as Audrey's gaze continued to wander. Kim was looking at him, but her eyes began to suddenly dart at the older woman's face with mild frustration. Audrey was clearly not telling him something, something that Kim already knew. As terribly difficult as their relationship had been, she was still his daughter. He could still read her and she knew it, a fact that was at least some comfort, some hope for their future. She gave Raines a last look and sighed. "Dad, Audrey talked to her father, about you going back to the DOD."

Kim Bauer's revelation broke Audrey out of her uncomfortable silence and there were tears threatening to fall when she finally turned toward him. "After this hearing, he wants you to come to him, Jack, just to talk. I've got two airline tickets with open booking and I have a real estate agent who's just waiting for me to tell her to start looking. Dad says we can stay with him until we find something, maybe in one of those gated communities. You deserve to face those people from that ship, Jack, but I know you'd want to be out of the reach of people like them for good."

Jack sat in silence, his eyes moving slowly between Raines and his daughter, fighting back a sudden, indefinable tension. "Is this what tonight was really about, Audrey?"

A sigh of mild frustration passed through the glossed lips of the slender blond woman. "In part,… yes. I wanted you to remember that life can be about simple things, pleasant things, and give you the opportunity to have those things again. We were happy in Washington, Jack, We need that again, especially after…" Audrey ran a hand over her mouth to silence herself before Kim Bauer. "I'm not asking you to decide tonight. I just wanted you to know the offer to talk to my father is there."

Jack swallowed twice, not looking at her, hearing not Audrey but another voice, a calm and reasonable one he'd come to respect. '… "The goal of everything I've done is to have you reach a point where you can make your own choices …'. Winters repeated, unheard and unseen, an influential ghost. 'no one has power over you that you don't give. …'. Jack forced himself to relax, staring at a point just over Raines' head. "You should have asked me before you went to him. I'm not looking for any favors, Audrey; I just want to get back to my life, whatever I want it to be."

Kim shifted uncomfortably in her seat next to Audrey, doubt on her face. "I know, Dad. Barry said that would be important to you. I just don't know if I can deal with the idea of you anywhere near CTU again; I can't even imagine you'd want to get that close to being in the field."

"Honey, I don't want to be. Someday, I'll tell you what happened. I can't now, but the quickest way I have of making myself feel useful again is CTU; they even know that and they want me there, and I need to finish things through with this hearing. I want to face these people. I want to see them face justice. I want to close that door."

Tears welled from Kim Bauer's eyes that trickled coldly down her father's heart. "I want that, too, but I want you safe. When Audrey told me she wanted to do this, I thought it was a way I could try and give you a chance."

Audrey looked between the father and daughter as the latter spoke. "Don't blame, Kim. She told me this might not be a good thing to ask you this evening. It's just, as much as I did to help you the day you were taken, the day Palmer was murdered, I was terrified every moment. I didn't know how to deal with it then, and I can't imagine either of us having to deal with anything even like it again."

Jack sighed, his expression hardening suddenly, "And so you didn't ask me, you talked to your father, you bought plane tickets, made living arrangements across the country… and asked my daughter to help you put all this in front of me? Damn it, Audrey, those decisions were about my life, used my family, how could you not think I'd want to know what you were doing? I've told you everything since I've been under your roof."

The tears finally fell from Raines' large eyes. "I know you did; that's what scared me."

Kim stood as soon as Raines spoke, crossing over to her father and sitting down on the arm of his chair. "I'm sorry, Dad, but it scared me, too. I knew if you survived it would be because were holding onto us, that was why I wanted to be here, even if I couldn't … deal with things later."

Audrey off his mind immediately, Bauer took his daughter in his arms, gripping her tightly, having heard the gentle implication that she would step out of his life once more. He sighed and sat back, fighting to stay calm. "I've spent the last four months of my life learning I was still capable of living it, that no one controlled me anymore. I know you think you're trying to help, but arranging all this without a word… wasn't the way."

Raines let her head drop, unable to silence the voice in her head that couldn't comprehend why he could face one more day inside of CTU. She had been with him only two days there, yet the terror and the machinations she had seen surrounding him, and in some cases committed by him, had left her reeling, even when there was no just alternative but to support him. "I thought it would all be a good thing for us, Jack. I even found a plastic surgeon who thinks he might be able to help you."

Bauer's head came off of his daughter's arm as the words left her mouth, his jaw clenching as the disbelief overcame him. The last bit of comfort he took in was the cool hand his daughter lay on his cheek as the angry rush of blood darkened it. "Help me or help you? To do what? Cover up scars only you seem to care about? I earned every Goddamn one of them!" With that he stood and took Kim in his arms, leaving her breathless when he finally released her. Before either of them could move, he was gone, out the front door, snatching his light jacket up along the way. By the time they followed him out to the street, Jack Bauer was nowhere to be seen.

xxxx

He'd turned the coat inside out, a minor difference in stitching impossible to tell from a distance. Audrey had no field experience, it was a trick that likely wouldn't occur to her when she called CTU and gave them a description of what he was wearing and told them that he had left the house unaccompanied, that no one was watching over him, or even watching him. The black liner of the light gray coat let him disappear in the darkness between the houses, so packed together in typical L.A. fashion that even their presence in the darkness made him feel closed in while he was outside. Jack moved slowly, however, not drawing attention from more than the stray cat who had been the subject of their conversation hours ago, back when he had been glad to be in the house now three blocks behind him. He kept moving quickly, refusing to let himself stop, refusing to let himself think, driven by anger and betrayal and frustration that had overcome reason, and his efforts to allow for what his captivity had done to everyone else. No real enemy was looking for him, not really, he'd been almost completely certain of that. His guards were there as much to protect his psyche as himself. He didn't need them; he didn't need anyone right now.

The darkness between the tightly packed suburban homes gave way after he'd walked for two hours, attempting to ignore the late fall chill that had descended from the mountains, wishing it could make his mind and heart as numb as his hands. Useful or not as a means of deceit, the jacket he had grabbed heading out the door was little barrier against the cold even with the tan sweater beneath it. He'd been cold before now, cold and scalding hot as frigid salt water had poured over into his wounds but cleansed him of his own filth. The demon of memory teased him as he moved, shivering, inviting him back into hell. He moved away from it even more quickly, warming himself with the fact that he'd once again left behind someone who had tried to control him.

The open streets he now walked cut through a neighborhood of apartment towers. Here the cars were smaller, the signs in more than a few languages, a few broken windows gleamed in the stores that lined the street itself. Jack noticed it all in passing and kept moving, doing what he'd been doing in his mind for weeks and weeks, moving forward, distancing himself from a painful past, only this time it was hours old.

It was another hour later that he vaguely acknowledged to himself his destination, admitted in the back of his mind why his steps were so sure even as the cold continued to bite his hands and face, left his feet feeling only the sensation of impact with the seemingly endless landscape of asphalt and concrete. They all lived fairly close to CTU, knowing they might be needed at a moment's notice, all but Audrey whose job rarely called for her to react to a field situation. It had taken him four hours, almost five, but he had made it, moving confidently through the darkened streets of Los Angeles, threatened – for once – more by the occasional desperate junkie than people who wanted to make a sick mark on the world.

He'd left the worst of the neighborhoods behind now, standing on a street ten minutes from CTU, laughing bitterly at the idea that they were all likely hunting for him. No doubt Audrey had called, had been hoping by now that they would have rounded him up and brought him back to a string of apologies and tears. He could have forgiven her for most of it if it had come in stages, a word here, a clue there, but he'd been ambushed enough to hate it even when it was well intended, and for it to be done with Kim's unwilling help had been another bit of salt in the wounds that were still far from healed. Maybe he should have let her in, asked Winters to let her join him, let understand the struggle he was facing but it would also have meant giving more of himself to her than she was ready to accept. Audrey barely understood that he wanted justice and the small bit of closure that it offered.

Bauer finally admitted to himself he had bolted with no destination possible but one; the light in her small, cluttered apartment was already on. Chloe was waiting for him, waiting for his knock, would probably come down looking for him before too long. Jack stepped back out of the light, back behind the corner of the alley as the CTU agent stationed outside reappeared, making his rounds. Six floors up, a shadow passed before the windowlight, a woman, her head hung down, moving slowly against the pale square of light.

She knew he was missing; someone would have called her. If she could have found him herself she would already have been looking but she knew the most likely place he would go… or so she'd believed. No longer feeling the cold, Bauer withdrew further into the shadows. He could slip past the guard easily enough, go to her and ask her not to tell them he was there and she would do it, she was Chloe, the one person who never failed him, never doubted, who deserved better and never asked for it, an ally a phone call away from treason.

It was all that she had been before, however, that stopped him now, that kept him hidden. It would be far too easy to retreat to her arms, to the blunt, stumbled-through words he wanted to hear, to have her sacrifice one more time to comfort him, to use her to hurt the woman he'd left behind. Irony chilled him within as Jack walked away, with no desire to come to Chloe when his only need was to drown his own pain. There'd been enough confusion and manipulation in his life tonight; he had no intention of, this time, being the bearer.

xxxxx

Another hour and fifteen blocks back, he waited as another door opened, his head hanging down and his eyes closed as he was steered by waiting hands into the room beyond. He shivered anew as his coat was dragged off and with cold-stiffened fingers he clutched the dryer-warmed blanket that was draped over his shoulders.

Cassie Gibson blew a long lock of unbrushed hair out of her face as she guided Bauer onto the couch, removing his shoes and socks and starting to massage the blood and warmth back into his right foot, tucking the left one under her arm. Bauer looked at her dully, too relieved to give himself into her care to worry about anything else. She offered him a low wattage smile and glanced at the door. "You're early."

Some of his cognitive abilities returning, Bauer merely sighed his confusion as the feeling painfully returned to his feet. "Early?"

"Well, Curtis called about six hours ago, told me where Audrey lived, and that you'd bolted and slipped the guards on foot." A look of sweetened guilt crossed her face as she switched to his left foot and continued working on him, her calloused hands surprisingly gentle. "I guess it took you about another hour to get back from Chloe's once you went past my place."

Jack started, then stared at her for a moment before offering her a very small smile. "I couldn't use her."

"I knew that. Wanna' tell me what happened?" Gibson looked down and saw that his toes were now a healthy shade of pink. She stood up and covered them before sitting down on the coffee table and handing him a steaming mug of tea that he discovered was laced with brandy. He finished it off in three swallows and looked up at the detective.

"I would, Cass, I just need…," He fell silent and shook his head, still shivering slightly. Unable to stop herself, Gibson guided him up and sat down behind him, sighing as Jack turned on his side and settled onto her crossed legs, his head cradled in the turn of her hip. She rubbed his shoulders brusquely and he gripped her knee to steady himself.

"Give me your hands," she ordered a few minutes later, taking them in her own, and rubbing them pink before releasing them, her long, calloused fingers flexed for a moment and then began a far more gentle movement, gently stroking the top of his head. "Just get some sleep, Jack. I'll call off the bloodhounds. I'll stop the questions. When you wake up, we'll see what you want to do."

Bauer flinched at her words and gathered the woven green blanket more tightly around himself with a final shiver. "That'll be a nice change."

Gibson's eyes narrowed at his words; intent on calming him still, she let her fingers drift through his hair until his breathing told her he was deeply asleep then opened the phone that had been in the pocket of her robe since Curtis had called. Not wondering if her sister was up, she turned the volume down all the way and hit the speed dial.

"What?"

"What?"

"He's here. I've got him." Cassie listened to the muffled sob at the other end of the line with a weary smile and waited until there was silence for more than few moments. "Monkey-butt?"

"Is he okay?"

"Trust me. He couldn't be any safer than he is right now. He was just a little frozen when he got in but I was ready for him. That's over; he's sound asleep and let's just say the dog would be jealous."

"Is that why you're whispering?"

"Mm-hmph.

Certain she'd lost the capacity for the night, Chloe suddenly found herself smiling and relaxed a bit more as she thought of Jack soundly and very safely asleep in her sister's lap. "Did he say what happened?"

"No, but whatever did, if Audrey shows up here I'll give her the choice of being arrested for trespass or served an emergency restraining order."

"Careful. She's the daughter of the Secretary of Defense."

"… and I have dirt on the local judge. Forget her."

An angry sigh erupted at the other side of the phone line, followed by the analyst's return to practicality. "I'll call CTU. But you know that means Audrey might call you."

"Somehow I doubt she'll want to hear anything I have to say. He couldn't be safer, Honey. You have my word. Now get some rest; I have a feeling we'll need it."


	27. Chapter 27

Jack Bauer's mind folded back on itself; the incongruent dream gave way to confusion. The icy waters retreated from his flesh, splashing down from the steel table to the deck, mired with filth and blood, but the cold he expected never came. The confusion started when he opened his eyes and looked up; the sky was a dull, unnaturally even blue, what little he could glimpse it through the branches of the tree above him; he was outside but somehow he was now warm, almost uncomfortably warm.

It was, in fact, the lingering burn in the pit of his stomach that slowly ended the confusion, the memory of hot tea laced with brandy, a heated blanket, of strong, careful hands that bled their warmth into his seemingly frostbitten feet…all of it provided to him where there were trees.

Wearing a dark green robe, every bit the quiet Earth Mother asleep, Cassie Gibson was sprawled comfortably against the back of the couch above him, the hand on the arm of the sofa lay next to her cell; her other arm was a warm, dead weight over his shoulders. Deeply asleep, she breathed only once every several seconds. Still moving slowly and carefully, Jack took hold of the hand dangling in front of him and lifted it free as he raised up from her lap, recalling he'd barely met her two months ago. He expected to feel a trace of embarrassment but there was none, except a slight bit for having been so predictable. A grateful sigh on his lips, Jack stood, knowing where to find coffee.

His angle now higher, he saw the small blue light flashing on the phone. He leaned over Gibson and picked it up, looking at the warning of a dozen unanswered calls. He hit the retrieve command, knowing what he'd find, scowling as he scrolled down the list that contained only one name. Raines had left six messages in between hang ups. Making sure it was still on vibrate, he put the phone back down on the table and went to the kitchen.

Bauer returned twenty minutes later, carrying a tray holding two steaming plates and two cups of coffee; he sat down on the sofa once more, the dishes rattling enough to wake the sleeping woman. Gibson groaned and then sniffed, not opening her eyes, her hand making a grasping motion in his general direction that was rewarded with a coffee mug and an unseen, lopsided smile. She opened her eyes after the first sip and pulled herself upright, scratching at her head and attempting to pull several lengths of hair out of her face. "Now you know why there's no "Mr. Cassie Gibson" and why I would get up an hour before you. I figured you'd had enough terrifying experiences."

Jack shook his head and offered her the plate after she drank nearly half the cup of coffee with the next drag. "Still not used to working days?"

"Let's put it this way, it's very comfortable sleeping sitting on the sofa when your normal spot is hanging upside down in the closet." She took the plate and gave an appreciative smile to the omelet awaiting her attention. "Once this set up is over and CTU is good with whoever else is a shift liaison. I'm going back to being a vampire. It's easier on the eyes than all this damn California sunshine."

Jack shook his head, unable to stop the smile despite beginning to think about what would go on in the next few hours, conversations he was dreading, explanations he couldn't give, explanations he wanted to give and wouldn't. They finished eating in companionable silence, more slowly than they might have otherwise, welcoming the distraction of the meal.

It was Gibson who gathered up the dishes and returned with a second cup of coffee for them both, her eyes narrowing as she stood in the doorway out of the kitchen and, unseen, watched Bauer for a long moment. She had expected him to be listless and distant, more like the man she had found in the CTU stairwell than the one she had worked with over the past few weeks. He was to some degree, but more somehow to himself than to her, as if he was removing himself from all that happened last night so that he could think more clearly. If so, it was yet another step forward she wondered if he knew he'd made. She moved the instant he turned toward her, curious as to why was taking so long.

"Here," she offered him the steaming mug and sat down, crossed-legged and facing him on the couch, wondering if she'd forgotten to send any of his clothes over to Audrey's when he'd left. "Before I ask anything,… should I?"

Jack's head dropped for a moment and she saw his shoulders twitch once, a brief hiss of ironic laughter escaping him just before he looked up. "What happened to Chlo's "bulldozer" theory?"

"I try to reserve that for perps and sisters who won't tell you anything if you don't flatten them." Gibson smirked then she brought herself back to the moment at hand, to the man who had stumbled half-frozen, if expected, through her door. "Not that I don't slip up and drag men I don't actually know to my apartment for weeks and… and beat them but--," Cassie broke off as he smiled. She huffed and looked away, however, as his expression sobered. "Jack, we know I don't have a great track record with Audrey but I've been honest about it and I'll help you now… however you want."

Bauer nodded slowly, not looking away from her direct and open gaze, "I know that; I appreciate it but I don't know what I do want, except for nothing else done behind my back." Bauer's jaw clenched and he sat up, closing his eyes for a second and then turning toward the detective. "Audrey had a catered dinner waiting when I got back… to her house last night; she'd invited Kim, too. God, it was everything I thought I'd never have again; my daughter was in my arms - she was giving me a chance; Audrey was saying all the right things. They both looked so beautiful; we finished dinner, we went and sat down and then… it was over - it was gone. Kim drew Audrey out; had her tell me she'd arranged what amounted to the rest of my life, where we'd live, what I could do for a living, that my daughter was giving me a chance thanks to her plans, that she'd even found a surgeon who might be able to work on the scars."

Gibson threw her head back and sighed, her eyes flashing, "Oh God, Jack. Oh God. No wonder you bolted. Sounds like you ruined her plans for getting her life back." The sharpness of her words was outdone only by the bitter accusation with which she spoke them.

Jack looked at the sandy-haired woman, the anger returning, the anger that had been his only warmth for the hours he'd made his way on foot through the city. "She kept saying how it was about protecting me, how all of it was all about me."

"I'm sure it was but I guess her attempt at brainwashing didn't work either." Cassie instantly slammed the hand not holding the coffee mug over her mouth, her eyes screwing shut. "Oh Hell, I'm sorry. That… was… worthy of my sister."

If he'd been offended, Bauer gave no sign; his expression was frozen into one of distant resentment. "I could have dealt with the rest it, Cass, the job offer, Washington, having it thrown at me -- except that she involved Kim, and then she wanted me to think about laying on a table… while somebody cut into my back."

Hidden from him, her fists clenched. Cassie swallowed her own resentment and disbelief; now wasn't the time. She knew his staying here had made her part of the problem but she was going to be hard pressed to forgive or forget what she'd just heard. Distancing herself ended, however, when she realized he was shaking, his ability to remove himself leaving him as he recounted the story. Cassie took the still hot second coffee from him, running her hand down his back until she found the point of greatest tension, pressing the heel of her hand down gently and working outward, forcing him to relax without his fully realizing it. "Jack, I know this is hard, but whatever you do, don't let it take you back. Whatever happened, it's not worth you losing ground. You had to survive torture alone; then you had trust other people to take care of you, my sister like she hadn't before, some doctor you didn't know who wanted in your head, me when I stuck my nose in. I guess Audrey's trying to make up for not being part of it, but this is your life. However tough last night was do not let her – don't let anyone -- take away what you've gotten back. Do you understand me?"

Calmed by her words and almost forcibly by the hand working at his back, Jack turned and found himself staring at the tears sliding down Gibson's face as she willed him to hang on. Three months ago she'd been a stranger; last night she'd known his every move from miles away, as if she had been watching him on satellite instead. He turned to face her, catching her hand as it slid from him when he moved. "I won't go back; I won't. I just hate the irony, I left Chloe, I left here, now Winters is gone; you all knew what to give me and when to let go. It's the person I tried to get back to who didn't understand."

Cassie sighed, squeezed his hand, and held her tongue as the realization ran every other thought out of his mind for the next several minutes, the long quiet moment ended by the phone. Cassie patted his hand as she let him go and, after a few sniffs, answered it without looking. "Detec--. Oh, Curtis, hi…. Swell. When?... What time?" She paused, waving a hand at Bauer for patience. "No, no, that's not… Yeah, everything's handled." The pause went on longer this time and ended with a sigh from the policewoman.

"I understand. Well, let's take that as it goes. Thanks, Curtis. We'll be there." She shut the phone and looked back at him. "The Federal Marshals have confirmed their route for bringing in the… detainees. Everything's been finalized. This part's almost over, Jack."

Bauer frowned, his face coloring slightly. "I guess he knows about last night."

Gibson shrugged one shoulder, knowing he probably didn't remember half of what she'd said after stumbling through the door, "Chlo' and I took care of it. Let's just say they weren't expecting the two us this morning." She let that sink into him and saw the news was welcome, at least he'd been spared the threat of any more surprises today but the peace lasted only until the inevitable question left her mouth. "Now the hard part, Jack: what do you want to do? We can't stay in my little forest forever."

Bauer's head dropped onto his crossed arms, so that for a few long moments he was as she had found him in the stairwell; she was unable to see the defeat and relief that for several minutes battled each other on his face and in his mind before merging into resignation. He lifted his head slowly and sat up, his decision etched into the tired lines of his chiseled, handsome face, his eyes locked on a spot somewhere between them. Bauer stood and retrieved the thin jacket that he'd grabbed on his way out the door last night, searching through the pockets until he found the small set of keys. He separated one from the rest and gave the small piece of metal a disbelieving and cold stare. "I took my keys. My things are still at Audrey's, along with a few hundred dollars worth more we picked up."

Gibson held back the immediate crack that came to mind about her having used him as a dress-up doll. "Security system, I assume?"

"I have a code, but I have hers too. She doesn't know."

Cassie came to her feet, her face twitching into a weak smile. "Good, then I won't have to arrest us for Breaking and Entering. Let me get dressed and get my dog then we'll go."

xxxx

Chloe O'Brian adjusted her earpiece for the fifth time in ten minutes, her fingers moving through the sequence of cameras again. Aerial views of downtown Los Angeles rotated one after another to her central screen, offering themselves to her scrutiny and shrinking back into position. It would look very different very shortly, devoid of traffic and dotted with a ring of police cars. She had isolated the route on which Jack and his escort would make their approach in time to join forces with the Federal Marshals. Once at the Federal Court the detainees would be taken in first so that they could be placed in the courtroom, in chains since they were already guilty, before Jack followed. Curtis and the rest of the team that he had led would offer their own statements about the condition in which they had found Bauer, then the documents they had seized and the even more chilling physical evidence was to be presented. Winters had prepared a statement that was to be entered on the record as well.

Chloe ran the protocols for the fourth time, the images fed to her by a sequence of traffic and security cameras. There was literally nothing more she could do. Chloe sat back with a scowl but managed a sigh as Bill, wearing a dark blue suit and a worried smile, approached her. He stopped before her station and rested his hands far apart on either side of it behind her primary monitor. "Everything's ready?"

Chloe nodded quickly. "I'm sick of North Spring Street." Her expression softened slightly when his did. "Nothing still on the dailies for the non-visual intel. I still just wish it was all over."

Bill nodded and offered her a small smile. "Well, we can't discount the fact that the Chinese would still like to see this whole matter disappear. I could get one of the other analysts to run this Chloe. That will be your sister out there if something happens."

O'Brian shook her head quickly. "Thank you, Sir. It's okay. We've got five APT units and the police are gonna' have everything sealed off soon. I have 18 cameras to pick from here. I would like to go down and see everybody off though. Is that all right?"

"Of course."

Chloe flicked him a smile as she suspended and locked her station then headed off toward the staging area.

xxxx

"So, any advice?"

Jack Bauer looked up at his friend as they both stood before the open equipment locker, strapping on bulletproof vests, Jack with movements whose new familiarity caused him to pause. Curtis saw him hesitate but withheld comment, no point in dragging up any more of the past today. Between the lines of the carefully worded scenario offered by Chloe and her sister he'd guessed Jack had already had large dose of it the night before last, a guess supported by the fact that Jack and Audrey Raines had yet to cross paths on today of all days. Maybe now wasn't the time for the line of questioning he'd started come to think of it; Jack, however, had managed to lock down the vest and position it and had a bit more attention to spare.

"Advice? Watch out for the legs." The smile that Curtis mirrored faded to a more somber expression. "There is one thing, my friend, she was almost raped once. Take your time"

"No problem, Jack, and trust me: I've been watching the legs." His smile faded slowly, "Listen, are you ready for this?"

Bauer looked at his surroundings, at the familiar movements of the people he'd assigned donning equipment and stowing the standard weapons packages for the five Armored Personnel Transports; all of them were dressed in black and taking their mission no less seriously than if it had been an active threat. The very young man who had identified himself as Marcus Griffin had been the first one to show up this morning, eager and almost too serious as he'd introduced himself. Jack sighed quickly and, unthinking, headed for the weapons locker next, stopping himself with a sigh and turning back as he remembered Curtis' question. "I'm fine. Legal arranged it so I just have to verify the documents that detail what they did to me. Winters has already signed an affidavit on the rest. They'll only read the initial charges, kidnapping, assault, torture, attempted murder, couple of Geneva Convention articles. I don't need to be there for the rest. It would be treaty violations if they could find who in the Chinese government author---."

Curtis cocked his head as his friend stopped talking, stuffing down his throat a smile when he turned to see Chloe O'Brian standing just inside the steel-reinforced doorway. Arms folded tight over her lavender blouse, she was looking at them both and fighting a smile of her own as she took in what would have been a familiar and routine scene not long ago. Curtis let a fraction of the smile escape that only Chloe could see and backed away slightly, "Jack, I'll catch you at the assembly point."

Chloe gave Manning a polite glance before her eyes lasered in on Bauer, who seemed not to be aware of Curtis retreating at all for a few seconds. He shook his head suddenly. "What? Yeah. Thanks." Bauer's thin lips tightened as the black man moved off, his attention returned immediately to Chloe as she glared several times to each side as if warding off evil spirits, then stepped between the lockers. Jack reached out his hands as she closed on him, their fingers curling in to one another's as she came to a halt; his cheek came to rest on her forehead. A sigh escaped him; he was shaking if just barely. It was O'Brian who eventually stepped back, her eyes pained when she looked up at him. "Jack, I'm sorry. Whatever happened it must have been really awful."

Jack nodded, his eyes on the concrete floor. For once, it seemed right to both of them that he wasn't looking her in the eye just now. "I'll tell you everything when there's time but thanks to you I was … I was strong enough, I was myself enough again… to walk away."

Chloe felt her throat tighten and her eyes heat with tears at his words. "I didn't know what to think when CTU called and said you were gone. How did you get past the team posted to guard you?"

Hands still holding hers, Bauer shrugged. "I knew where they were. I knew their routines. I went over two fences and between the houses and waited for the search pattern to widen. Once I was into the city, it was easier; I spent most of the time dodging the police."

Chloe couldn't help the twisted smile that was suddenly pulling at her face. "Kinda' like always, hmph?" She stopped fighting the smile when she saw a similar expression coming to his face but her happiness faded suddenly, "They thought you were coming to my place, Jack, Doctor Colson did when they woke him up."

Jack sighed, his eyes going to his watch. There was suddenly too much he wanted to say and there was no time. "I'll explain everything later, Chlo', but he was right."

Chloe's mouth fell open even as she seemed to withdraw very slightly in upon herself, for once she seemed not to have heard him. "Oh. Well, couldn't you get past the guard? It must've taken you another hour to get back to---."

"Jack, it's time." Curtis' voice cut above the rustling and thumping of bodies and the metallic hissing and clicking of weapons being held at the ready.

"Just a minute, Curtis." Jack turned back and, after a last glance to see if they were unobserved, took O'Brian in his arms. She could feel him shaking again but only just barely. She wondered if she was even imagining it to have an excuse to hold him a little more tightly as he spoke again, his voice gruff and tense. "Are you running comms?"

Her chin hooked over his shoulder, Chloe bit her lip for a moment. "I can do it. Bill offered to let me out of it but I don't want anyone else doing this."

His head down against her neck, she felt him smile – and the tremor running through him she thought she might be imagining vanished just before he spoke again. "I don't want anyone else either." He sighed as her lips brushed firmly beneath his ear when she stepped back, grimacing at letting him go and wondering at the words he'd spoken and the ones he hadn't. Whatever he'd meant or hadn't, nothing had changed in one respect, she'd trust him to explain in his own time and he'd trust her to hear the truth. She made no attempt to wipe her eyes before she stepped back and kept hold of him at arms' length.

"When they drag them off, look them in the eye for both of us."

"Yes, Ma'am." He didn't smile; his expression was pure obedience, the kind he was glad to offer. He watched her nod and then the analyst slowly took over, logic hardening her eyes and tightening her elfin features.

"Curtis has a comm unit, so does Agent Corwin, and so does my sister to monitor CTU procedure and coordinate the LAPD units."

Jack nodded and took her elbow as they headed toward the final staging area before the motor pool. Twenty CTU agents were assembled there, Curtis standing half a head taller than all of them. Next to him a blond ponytail stood out against Gibson's black vest, trailing a few inches down her back. Chloe stopped and stared at the sight, proud and impressed but not entirely happy. Cassie guessed all three feelings and didn't flinch when she met her sister's eye. "First round's on me tonight; get that stupid look off your face." When the look didn't vanish, Gibson retreated to her usual tactic. "All right, look at it this way, for the first time in our lives, if you tell me to do something, I'll have to listen."

That drew the smile she wanted and a smaller one between Bauer and Manning as they watched; the smile faded from Chloe's eyes as Jack moved to join his escort, suddenly looking unhappy himself, his expression lightening when Manning extended a holster to him, complete with a loaded pistol.

"I don't care if you are the package; I'm not going out there without my best back-up."

Chloe's faded smile became a twisted smirk as she watched Bauer shrug gratefully into the assemblage of straps that positioned the weapon just at his waist on his left side. She fought to keep the smile as the three of them turned and moved off, Bauer between Gibson and Manning. The older woman dropped back slightly to place a hand on Bauer's back, making a last, silent promise to her watching sister. Chloe turned when they were gone, walking at a fast clip back to her station, intent on being there before the first motor started. She pulled open the frosted glass door and stopped short, her expression going from surprise to irritation as she looked at Audrey Raines, catching herself from falling forward where she had been reaching for the snatched open door. Chloe's eyes flashed up, a cold twist coming to her lips. "Don't bother. He's gone. Well, gone again."

xxxxxx

Jack climbed into the rear passenger seat of the third vehicle, seating himself between the two most heavily armored panels. Curtis was in the last vehicle to oversee all of them, and Gibson was in the first to allow her an unobstructed view of the units she had called up. The CTU second in command, Corwin, was driving the vehicle he was in and Bauer lowered his head and smiled as the young blond man sat back and tapped his earpiece. "Loud and clear, Agent O'Brian."

Chloe sat back and glanced up at Buchanan. "I'm good for all three. As soon as I get word the Marshals are ready to move I'll work out the timing and let you know. They've got eight miles farther to go from the covert holding facility and we're not holding back traffic until we're within three miles of the CTU perimeter on the Court."

Buchanan looked up at the central display holding a live aerial satellite shot of the two blocks surrounding the Federal District Court on North Spring Street. No traffic moved in the immediate two blocks around the vicinity now and he could just make out the distinct patterns of two police cruisers holding each intersection and another pair making routine passes on the 101 Freeway on the left of the screen. The shot was close enough to count the individual trees and bushes that flanked the white stone building. They could even count the cars in the parking lot. It was near noon so the buildings cast no shadows that would have impeded their view. He turned to look at O'Brian when her head suddenly came up.

"That's it. I got the call, the Federal Marshals have left."

"Remind Curtis of their E.T.A. at the rendezvous point and give him the go-ahead."

Chloe nodded and touched the comm unit in her ear. "Curtis, Special Deputy Kenner says they're en route. You'll rendezvous on North Grand Avenue and West First in ten minutes. We're using the Municipal Court as a check point."

Curtis nodded and opened the frequency on his comm. "Everyone copy?" He paused and got confirmations from Corwin and Gibson. "All right, move out. Cassie, tell your units we're on the way and to firm up the perimeters."

Jack sat back in the seat, his eyes closing for a moment as he listened to the familiar chatter, still not quite wanting to believe that the "package" being transported was himself. He wanted this over, wanted it to be just one more thing he'd put behind him. He was looking forward to two hours from now for the fact that it would simply be two hours from now. His hands twisted the straps of the holster as they pulled clear of the CTU parking lot and headed toward the Municipal Court. The screen just next to the steering wheel showed a small scale GPS map: two small green dots represented the two soon-to-be merging groups of vehicles. His captors and torturers were a few blocks away, ready to be brought before the justice system of the country they'd been taught to hate since birth. He didn't even know their names. Today would be the first time and he hoped the last that he ever heard them.

The streets of Los Angeles and its mostly white buildings sailed by outside, palm and deciduous trees planted at regular interval on either side of the broad streets. Every foot seemed to pass like a mile. Corwin suddenly touched the comm in his ear and then turned. "This is Agent O'Brian, Sir. She says the police units have swept the parking lots and sealed off Federal Court perimeter even to pedestrians; everything's right on time."

Jack nodded his thanks and squinted to get a better view of the unfocused glare of light ahead, surprised that they had reached the rendezvous point so quickly. The Municipal Court they were using as a reference to merge their resources was, from this direction, just past the Walt Disney Concert Hall, a mass of gleaming metal that stretched up from the streets at strange angles and curves. Across from it was the tree-lined and white columned Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Corwin touched the comm again, out of habit and not necessity, when they reached the corner of North Hope and West First. "Yes, sir, Mr. Manning, I have a visual. They'll be turning right to merge in with us. Three minutes to perimeter."

Jack spotted the four identical white vehicles on the far side of the intersection they were now approaching, his eyes narrowing. In chains within them were the people who had held him, had tortured him, scarred him inside and out. Whatever they had taken from him, he still had his freedom. Today would ensure that they would never take a free breath again.

He was still staring at the line of white vans when the second of them exploded into flames.

Jack caught himself as Corwin, reacting quickly, spun the wheel and slammed on the brakes, jackknifing the SUV and intending to get him out of harm's way. His heart pounding as the vehicles and personnel regrouped to evade the threat, Jack was shoved down by the agent next to him as Corwin sought an opening in the sudden chaos of traffic; from the floor of the vehicle he only heard the glass of the side window shatter as an armor-piercing shell blasted through it. He felt himself yanked upward again as Corwin fell sideways across the now empty passenger seat, his eyes vacant, the only white visible on his face behind the veil of streaming blood. Jack jerked away from the hand of the agent who had taken hold of him to pull him out of the now compromised vehicle. "Wait a minute," he snapped, fiercely enough that the younger agent immediately released him.

Jack Bauer glanced out of the windshield at the agents scrambling out of vehicles and taking up positions behind them surrounded by bursts of sporadic gunfire, now aware that there was a sniper and at least one RPG launcher threatening the mission that moments ago had seemed simple. The marshals were stopped on the other side of the street, also reassembling themselves and their prisoners, down to three vehicles and a flaming wreck.

Bauer reached beneath the head of the dead man who had been driving and with a steady hand removed the field comm from his ear, pausing only a moment before slipping it into his own.

"Chloe, it's me."

xxxxxxx

Chloe O'Brian wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wanted to run out in the field with a weapon of her own for the first time in her life. Before any of that happened, she wanted her heart to stop its sudden pounding against her ribs; the noise was making it hard to think. Instead of giving in to any of what she felt, she took a breath and in the space of it forced herself to feel nothing. She was calm, she was ready. She was what Jack needed most; she was the one person that never failed him no matter what. Jack relaxed ever so slightly as he heard the voice that calmly answered him, "I'm on it, Jack. I can't raise Curtis. My sister's saying she's okay. What's your situation?"

"The Federal Marshal's convoy has been hit. They've taken out at least one vehicle, probably with an RPG, and the CTU team is taking sniper fire. Corwin is dead. I'm on his comm."

"I know. I… Jack…I… guess we need a new plan. Can you see…" the voice in his ear suddenly did falter but he knew why. Just as Bauer was about to turn to look for Gibson eight police cruisers roared into the intersection, sealing it off. Wearing vests they must have already had on, each car spat out two officers who began herding the civilians who were paralyzed with fear or were trapped in their vehicles out of the roadway, using themselves as human shields. Bauer paused for half a second to take in the sight. "We've got police moving in already. I'm sure she's fine. See if you can reconnect with Curtis." Crouched behind the vehicle he'd exited along with the three surviving CTU members, Bauer watched another Federal van across the way explode and crash back to the ground. "Damn it. Chloe!"

"Yeah, Jack?"

"I'm not the target. The prisoners are!"

Depending on the number of rounds at the disposal of their attackers, Bauer was not, however, assuming that killing the people who had held him, who might eventually turn out names under interrogation, was going to satisfy them. He looked down the row of armor reinforced CTU vehicles at the terribly young faces staring back at him. Corwin had been their team leader, second in command after Curtis. As he reached the last face visible he was relieved to see Cassie Gibson crouched behind a large concrete planter well back on the sidewalk, a shotgun that was useless at this range in her hand but a standard issue CTU sniper rifle was on the ground beside her.

"Cassie!"

"Jack!? Stay down. We have to get you out of here!"

"I'm not the target!"

The nearest of the young agents turned to face him. "She's not CTU but she's right, Mr. Bauer, sir."

Jack turned to face the man and realized it was Griffin. "Not yet. Whatever their primary goal this is about an attack on this city now, too. You've got civilians in the line of fire; they're your first concern. This isn't just about me now, understood?"

Griffin and the rest of the team looked suddenly confused but still no less determined to make the mission a success whatever it had become. Bauer sighed heavily and dropped his voice. "Chloe?"

Chloe backed up a few inches and closed her eyes, for a moment letting her attention go somewhere other than the traffic cameras she was trying to reroute to her terminal. "I'm right here, Jack. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Chloe. But I need a satellite on the roofs of the Chandler Pavilion and the concert hall. They're positioned up there."

"I'm retasking it now. We're getting the streets locked off."

"… and I need to talk to Bill."

Chloe's heart began pounding again. She knew why. Damn him… she knew why. "Hold on. He's right here." O'Brian turned around and looked up, almost cringing, her eyes on the tall, distinguished figure behind her. Buchanan laid a hand on her shoulder as he leaned down.

"I'm here, Jack. I guess this isn't what we thought."

"No, Sir. It's not." There was a pause, only the space of a breath before Bauer spoke again, his voice calm and reasonable, the voice of a man who had, in this unthinkable and unexpected moment, put the last several months out of his mind. "Bill, this was supposed to be a milk run. I can't get hold of Curtis and the rest of these people were sent to gain experience. I've got a bunch of kids and one good cop out here."

"Are you taking this where I think you are, Jack?"

The pause came again. "If you'll let me but you don't have time to do much else. Give me operational command, Bill. I'm fine. I put these kids out here; I want to get them home and to get whoever's behind this. Chloe's already getting us a feed."

"Hold on, Jack." Bill Buchanan straightened and backed away a step from Chloe O'Brian, surprised to find her expression was calm if slightly pouty, as if she were working up her nerve. He signaled for her to mute the transmission to Bauer. "Chloe, you know what I'm about to ask you."

She nodded slowly, glancing back at the screens before her for any further fragment of information before she made the call. She turned back no more informed but her chin was firm and her eyes steady as she felt herself slowly nod. "He told me he was fine too, so he is, and that cop out there is my sister. Sir.' Without waiting to see even the look on his face as she finished, Chloe turned back to the screen and refocused her efforts, finally getting the satellite into play. She took another breath and flexed her clenched hands for a moment as she began to assemble a picture of the top of the tall, flat-topped, white-columned building across the way from the halted CTU vehicles, swallowing as Bill Buchanan leaned over her and reactivated Jack's comm himself.

"Jack, you've go provisional command but your first duty is to find out what the hell is going on with Curtis."

Jack Bauer sat back on his heels, part of him wondering what the hell he'd just done. The people who had left CTU twenty minutes ago to protect him were now his responsibility. He pulled himself together before the thoughts had time to progress. One doubt and he would give in to the rest. His eyes dropped again to the stone planter, his attention caught by Cassie Gibson suddenly making a move. She was aiming the shotgun, not at what would have been an unreachable, even if spotted target on the roof across the way, but at the street light above them. She fired two shots into it and under the cover of the explosion of sparks scrambled over to him, a late trail of gunfire on her heels, the sniper rifle hanging off her shoulder.

"Can you raise Curtis?" Her face contorted as she looked up into the cab of the SUV and saw Corwin's lifeless body. "Oh, Hell. What's going on here, Jack?"

Jack turned her from the sight and huffed in a quick breath as they knelt facing each other. "Buchanan's given provisional command until we get a location on Curtis, but he would have made himself known by now if he were in play." Bauer watched her for a reaction but none came. He allowed himself a quick smile. "It looks like you're okay with that."

"You are; that's enough for me." Her voice dropped to the range of only his hearing. "Whatever's gone on, Jack, you staffed according to the information you had, but these guys are rookies. Every cop I pulled as a CTU responder is ex-military or current reserves. We just need you to tell us what to do."

Jack nodded, his eyes sweeping past her to the street now covered in a scattering of abandoned vehicles, counting how many agents he could see and wishing for a pair of binoculars so that he could know exactly what was going on across the wide boulevard. He could count only eight figures from this vantage point, four of them wearing orange jumpsuits, two of them Federal Marshal's uniforms and two civilians who had been pinned in the assault and ordered to stay put. Bauer turned back to Gibson, "They're on the roof of the pavilion. It's a suicide mission; they'll never get away."

"The chopper can be here any second."

"Call them off. They can't get close enough to be of any use. They'll take them out with the RPG."

Cassie nodded and did so, spotting the aircraft just as it veered off to land on the roof of the Municipal Courthouse diagonal from their position. "Now what?"

He was about to answer when the explosion of the second CTU vehicle knocked them to the ground.


	28. Chapter 28

The sound of the explosion came through the still open comm that was on Jack Bauer's ear, followed by the sounds of distant sirens. Chloe O'Brian's fingers shook over the keyboard she had been master of only moments before as the sounds stopped her heart and drowned out every thought in her mind. Buchanan's hand on her shoulder settled her down as the seconds following it passed, comforting her and frightening her at the same time. She forced herself to think, reminded herself that the explosion didn't have to mean the worst. One sign that she couldn't do this and she couldn't be there for them, couldn't be there to help if they needed it, couldn't be the first one to hear that they were all right. She pulled the comm closer to her mouth and unclenched her jaw. "Jack? Jack? Are you okay?" She waited only a few seconds before switching the frequency, "Cassie? Cassie, come in please?"

Jack Bauer woke to a voice that brought an unsteady smile to his face but it was gone in seconds. Further disoriented by its loss, he opened his eyes into the glare of sunlight coming off the metal skin of the concert hall behind him and the sun itself overhead. However, the heat he felt was from the fire raging in the twisted metal hulk of the second CTU vehicle that had come to a halt five yards ahead of his own. With relief he spotted the four figures gathered behind the concrete planter that had sheltered Gibson. They had dragged a fifth behind the scant cover with them but he was moving feebly. Bauer sat up and turned when he heard a groggy voice behind him.

"Get the Walt Disney Concert Hall evacuated now. We have at least two officers down." She paused as Bauer sat up and sighed quickly. "Make that one. Get responders on the perimeter but do not move in, repeat - do not move in. Order the units to clear this intersection. This is a live fire situation, repeat, a live fire situation, over."

"Copy that, Detective Gibson. Good Samaritan, St. Vincent, and Pacific Alliance Medical Centers are on full alert for casualties, over."

"Understood. Mobilize SWAT to coordinate with CTU on my call and stand by."

Bauer held his breath as she finished, talking not into her CTU comm but the LAPD radio she was also carrying. He watched the three streaks of blood slip, ignored, down the side of her face. "Are you okay?"

"Just tired of busting my head open around you. What about you?"

Jack managed a half-smirk as he nodded, "Just got hit by the compression wave." He reached up and tripped his comm. "Chloe?"

There was a pause, one longer than he expected but then he could see her teeth grinding a few miles away, her lower lip flattening the upper one beneath the screwed shut eyes. "Are you okay?"

"We both are. Have you got that satellite retasked?"

O'Brian clenched her hands, the tension in them keeping her upright as the relief burned through her and stung her eyes. She could kill him later; he needed her now. "Yeah, it's clear. There's nothing on the roof of the DC Pavilion, and there's nothing going on there today. It should be empty. The design of the concert hall is too crazy, though. It's hard to read. I can't help you there but it's being evacced through the back garden. Everybody's gonna' be held until this is over."

"This is a one-way for whoever's behind this, Chloe. Tell them to get those civilians clear. Stand by."

"I'll see if I can find an archive of the interiors."

Jack moved closer to the cover of the CTU vehicle he had been in, dragging Cassie with him. "Chloe said the roof is clear over there but they need elevation to get to targets as far apart as they have accurately with an RPG."

"Which means?"

"They're in as high up as the can get in the DC Pavilion; the snipers are behind us. We don't have much time now that the streets have been emptied. They didn't have a clear field but they must not have ammo to waste or they would have targeted the vehicles again."

His dark hair plastered with sweat, Griffin eased himself closer, "Mr. Bauer, I raised Deputy Kenner. He said he's moving his people and the prisoners into the parking garage across the way. He also has charge of two civilians who were caught in the situation."

Jack nodded and looked at the structure across the street. "Let me have your radio. Is it still set to his frequency?' The younger man nodded and turned it over. "Deputy, this is Jack Bauer, CTU. I've been given provisional command."

The radio crackled for a moment before the tinny voice emerged, "I thought you were the package."

"I am… was. Things changed. Go with your plan to get your people moved to cover."

"Understood."

"What do you have in the way of casualties?"

"Two dead, two injured when they were thrown clear of the first van, including one of the prisoners. The second van was our court security team. We lost them all."

"Damn it. All right. Stay on this frequency, report to Agent Griffin if your situation changes."

"Understood."

Jack handed the radio back to the younger agent and from where they crouched behind the third SUV glanced back up at the white-columned building across the street. "Radio the other teams. Tell them to hold their positions and that I have provisional command." Griffin nodded and Jack turned back to look northwest down the now empty street. A red car was directly behind theirs, a few feet back and out in the right lane; its driver was slumped at the wheel. Two buses, thankfully empty, were behind it, obscuring their view of the fourth and last CTU vehicle. "Cass'."

The blood now a wiped smear on her forehead the woman moved up beside him. "Yeah?"

"If we get past the buses we'll be able to see what the Hell's gone on with Curtis. Once we know we'll have two objectives, getting inside the concert hall and getting inside the Pavilion."

Gibson glanced between the two buildings and back to him. "I can make it to Curtis. If we don't move soon we'll lose the confusion of the evac in the concert hall."

Bauer nodded, glancing up at the twisted arcs of metal towering above the streets. "Now we know they're in there but they won't reveal their position again until the building's empty unless it looks like we're moving out of range."

"You mean their job is to pin us down so that the one with the RPG can get as many of us as possible?"

Bauer nodded, "No evidence that way and this is a clean up. You can't get ballistics off burned bodies." He turned from the scowling woman and reached up, activating the comm. "Chloe?"

Chloe ground her teeth as she heard his voice but to herself, fighting for every calm word that left her. "Right here, Jack. What's going on?"

Bauer glanced between the two buildings then his eyes closed, "Contact the power company. Have them shut down the grid for this area and get both of these buildings dark."

"I'll get Mr. Buchanan on it." She put the rest of the pieces together as she spoke. If he wanted the buildings dark, there was a reason, one she didn't have to be a computer genius to figure out. "You're going in?"

His back against the rear tire of the SUV in which he'd been traveling, Bauer nodded, his eyes still closed, refusing to think past the next moment more than necessary, beyond what was the fastest way to end this situation. The irony that he was leading the sudden mission to stop the execution of the people who had tortured him was another thought he was keeping at bay. "I'm going to find out what's happened with Curtis first, but I'm sure he's out of play. If he is we'll clear things with him, if he's not we'll start moving as soon as they're dark."

Chloe glanced behind her, up at Bill Buchanan, who was naturally standing over her at half the distance he normally would have, watching for the first sign that Jack Bauer was unable to handle the provisional command he'd granted. She didn't smile as she met his eye; her face held no expression at all. She had no doubt he knew she was being strong for both of them, for Jack and herself, that one sign of question from her would be worse than any doubt in Bauer's own mind. Her fingers steady, her voice calm, she returned her attention to Jack as Buchanan hovered a moment more before heading to his office. She saw him pick up a red phone and hit one of the speed dials.

"Jack, we're getting an emergency power cut. I can't get a visual on Curtis and the other SUV. They're too far back from the intersection for the cameras. There'd be no point in trying the cameras at the hall and the Pavilion since we're cutting the power. What are you gonna' do?"

Jack straightened when she stopped talking, absorbing not only the information but the lifeline of simply hearing her voice. When it ended with the question, Bauer opened his eyes and took a breath to answer her, only to have the answer cut off by Gibson pointing at the street lights. "The grid's down already. They're out."

Bauer was immediately on his feet. "Move."

Gibson and Griffin bolted across the length of the red car at the order, both glancing back to see that he was on their heels, reaching the cover of the first bus and then moving to the second. They stopped at the end of it, Gibson pulling up short and dropping to the ground to slide forward the last two feet as the two men came to a halt behind her.

The sight that greeted her drew a sigh and caused her to rest her head on the sidewalk. Watching her closely, Bauer was alarmed for a half second and then saw the vestige of a smile creasing her cheek. "Cass'?"

Gibson pushed herself up and shook her head. "Curtis' vehicle slammed into Unit 4 when it turned away from the attack. I think they might all be okay for now, but Curtis is out on the ground. I guess they quit trying to move him when the sniper fire started."

Griffin looked over at the two collided CTU vehicles, then up at the steel monolith of the concert hall, judging the angle. "The buses must be in the way of the sniper. That means we should start our search at the southwest corner of the building." He brought his gaze back down to an approving half-smile on Bauer's face.

The older man's gaze sobered suddenly, however, his lips tightening when he reached up and took the comm from his ear, offering it to Marcus Griffin. "When we get across the street, have the CTU forces here move into the concert hall, isolate the southwest corner and move in."

Griffin nodded, his dark hazel eyes unwavering but suddenly unhappy. "As soon as we put an end to this, Sir, we'll get you out of here safely."

Cassie Gibson glanced down at the younger of the CTU agents and then up at Bauer, her lips drawn tight. "Damn right."

Bauer looked gratefully between the two of them before he focused on Griffin. "Wait till we get to Agent Manning, then move when we head into the Pavilion. We'll split their attention. Remind your people it's going to be dark in there."

Griffin nodded and dropped the rifle into his hands that had been hanging over his shoulder. "Yes, Sir."

"Keep your comm open and Agent O'Brian informed." Jack watched the young agent nod, dart back to the cover of the SUV, then head toward the clutch of agents still hovering around the fallen one. A dozen yards past them the first vehicle's agents were crouched down and waiting for orders. Bauer turned back and looked at Cassie Gibson, the assault rifle at rest in her hands. She suddenly thrust it toward him and Jack took it automatically, "Let's go."

They took off, running brokenly to make themselves harder to track during their brief sprint out in the open that ended with Cassie on her knees next to Manning, experienced hands assessing his injuries. Over her head, she could hear Jack briefing the others. Curtis stirred and groaned as her hand found the break in his left arm. She put a finger over his mouth and shook her head.

"We've sealed the area. Jack's with me."

Bauer turned as Manning tried to sit up and reached past Cassie to push him back. "Stay. We've got snipers not just the RPG. I've split the team and had them pull the plug on both buildings. The concert hall was evacced and the DC Pavilion is empty."

Curtis fought the hand holding him down for only a few seconds and looked between the woman and blond man kneeling over him. "Did Buchanan give you command?" Jack nodded slowly, swallowing as he looked away. It was Curtis' good hand suddenly gripping his arm that brought his eyes back to the black man's face; there he saw a thin smile as Manning let himself sink back to the pavement. "Fine. This arm isn't going to do any of us any good and everything else is still blurry." He held Bauer's gaze a moment more before his head fell to the side.

Curtis didn't react as Bauer took the comm from his ear, "Just hang on, my friend." …and placed it in his own. "Chloe, it's me I'm on Curtis' comm."

"Got you, Jack. Is he okay?'

"He'll live but we have to get him out of here. Stand by." Jack stood up, knowing they were still out of range of the snipers in the structure of the concert hall behind the cover of the buses. He pulled Cassie upright and lowered his voice out of the range of Manning's hearing as he drifted in and out of consciousness. "I'm taking the team inside the Pavilion. I'll leave one of them here. Stay with Curtis. If he regains consciousness, see if you can move him."

Gibson stared at him for another long moment they didn't have, her eyes becoming ironically hard as emerald. "Given my genetics, I doubt you'll be surprised to hear this but there's absolutely no way in Hell I'm leaving you, and not because I doubt you but first of all, I made a promise; secondly and tactically, you'll need me inside; thirdly, two men will have a much better chance of getting Curtis out of here."

Jack felt a sting of temper for the first time, his own eyes growing equally cold as he faced the detective. "This is your first mission as LAPD liaison; you're in no position to argue with me and I am giving you a direct order."

The eyes meeting his didn't waver and in them Jack Bauer got his first glimpse of a side of Gibson he knew had to exist but that she'd had no reason to show him until now. "Then order me as an officer with seven years experience hunting people in the dark; do not order me as Chloe O'Brian's sister."

Jack held her gaze a moment more before his head dropped, not with defeat but with acceptance. She was right; she had worked at night most of her career, searching the darkened Pavilion was a job for which she was uniquely qualified above any of the agents here, and strong as she was there would be no way for her to move Curtis alone. Right now, all of those things had to count more than how much he wanted to protect her. "Fine." He turned from her as she sighed and looked at the young men facing him. "You two, stay with Curtis, move him as soon as you can. The rest of you, we're getting in the Pavilion and starting an extraction sweep, four of you tac on Detective Gibson. You are under her command. Her team will break right. Three of you tac on me." Jack turned from the seven CTU agents assembling themselves and Gibson helping herself to the Curtis's weapons; he looked across the narrow stretch of roadway and found Marcus Griffin watching him, waiting for the sign to send his own forces into the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He flashed him a signal to break in fifteen seconds and turned back, his hand rising to his ear. "Chloe, we're going surgical in twelve."

"Understood, we've got more teams moving to seal the exterior," came the answer, calm, unwavering, trusting… confident. No trace of doubt came to his ear and its absence reinforced his heart. Jack Bauer's head lifted as her voice faded; he drew his sidearm and turned back, his hand raised to signal the young agent across the street, "Go!"

They broke around the side of the SUV on the street, using the few seconds of surprise their movement granted to reach the far side of West First Street. Sniper fire trailed them as they reached the grounds of the Pavilion and crossed the open concrete platform that concealed a deactivated fountain, splitting to either side of the huge building, Gibson to the right as ordered and Bauer to the left. Shots shattered the glass entryway and left a sea of glass that glittered in the shadow of the building's face, shots that betrayed the location of the snipers across the way. If Griffin was hoping to make an impression, all he had to do now was be careful.

Following the lead of a red-haired CTU agent, Cassie pulled up short at the service door on the right side of the building, aiming the rifle she'd taken as he wired a small, shaped charge into the door and biting back the comment about breaking into show business. The door exploded and swung open slowly through a small cloud of smoke. Gibson assumed that Jack's team had the same devices available to them.

With the power and presumably the backups cut off no alarm sounded. Blackness, silence and nothing else awaited them on the other side of the door, which proved to be an emergency exit. The two men on either side of her headed for the doorway instantly, held back by her immediate order to stop. All four of them turned toward her curiously and she pointed up toward the sun. "Two of you watch the door, two of you close your eyes tight for about ten seconds, then cover us going in. You won't be as disoriented."

The four men glanced at each other then nodded and complied. Eleven seconds later they were inside what appeared to be an access corridor from the main hall. Only the battery powered "EXIT" signs offered any break from the darkness. Cassie came to a stop at the head of the corridor and signaled for the rest to halt as she reached up for the comm. "Chloe, we're inside the Pavilion on the Grand Avenue side."

Chloe O'Brian ground her teeth and held back the reply she wanted to make. "Okay, Jack's team is in. We've got the areas around both buildings locked down if they get past you."

"Have a little faith, Sister Chloe. What's the general direction of "up" in here?"

Chloe glared at the diagram on the screen, the blueprints of the Pavilion they kept on file in the event of a terrorist attack there, although it was supposed to have been the target and not the origin. "Through the main hall. There's a service corridor on the left marked "Do Not Enter"."

"Well, have them change that, would you? I'll call you when we're there."

Chloe huffed back into her chair for a moment. Her insane sister was still making jokes, and she could tell by the sound of her voice that one some level she was getting off on this mess but then you probably had to to even want to do it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

"Chloe, it's me."

O'Brian's heart jumped for the hundredth time in nine minutes. "Yeah, Jack?"

"We're almost at the top of the stairs."

"Okay, Cassie's team should be there on her side in about four minutes. There's a service area for the balcony that's wide open and a maintenance corridor that goes out toward the windows about two hundred yards away. That's the only cover from where you are."

"How close will the other team be from their end?"

"Three hundred yards."

"Patch me into Cassie."

Chloe paused for a moment before obeying him. He was setting up a pincer movement, one whose timing should land him and her sister in the open area at the same time. Chloe felt her hands beginning to shake again, her skin now feeling so tight that she could barely stretch to the top row of keys. Maybe she shouldn't be the one running this but the thought of not doing so made her hands shake more. "Hold on, Jack. Okay, she can hear you."

In the darkness, Jack flattened himself against the wall of the landing, his gaze focused upward. There was light there, a gray mist of it coming in through the massive glass front of the building. The three young recruits were kneeling one the stairs, on of them positioning himself directly between him and the final level. "Cassie, how long till you reach the top?"

"Hold on…. We're there now."

"There's an open area about five hundred yards from you and two hundred from us and a maintenance corridor there that sounds like it's a defensible position. Keep your comm open. Let us know when you have it in sight, and…" Bauer paused for a moment, admitting to himself finally that there was a clot of ice in his stomach. The sound of his blunt fingernails scraping the textured surface of the rifle in his hands suddenly told him how tightly he was holding it and, standing in the midst of the younger agents, he was glad of the darkness. "…Cassie, be careful."

Crouched just below the top level of the stairs, rifle braced in her hands, Gibson felt nothing but the dry ache of her throat. If something happened now, her sister would hear it and God knew what would happen to Bauer. This was a whole new level of careful. She could see something moving in the half-light above them now, drifting back and forth in one spot. If there was any doubt they were on the right level, it was gone. "Jack, hold your position. We've got a hell of a lot more ground to cover." She turned back to the four men with her and put a finger to her lips before waving them forward. On point with the nearest one, she eased silently over the lip of the stairs.

Several yards down the corridor, in the dim light that now had begun to relieve the darkness, three bodies hung from an exposed support beam, all wearing what she assumed where the security uniforms of the guards here. Two of them were no older than the CTU recruits. Gibson bit back a curse and waved her troop to stop, knowing that whoever had left the bodies might be waiting for an opportunity provided by the shock. She looked sharply at each of the wide-eyed recruits, shaking her head, waved them out to either side of the corridor, taking a position with the two along the right wall as they moved silently forward.

Jack saw the muzzle flash in the same instant he heard the first round of fire, dropping to the ground and returning it in to the anonymous darkness, knowing the other CTU team was still too far away to have been the source. Whoever they were after was fishing blindly for a target and by sheer luck found one. To his right one of the agents who had been accompanying him fell, dropping so close to the stairs that he slid down three of them before catching himself with a groan. In the darkness ahead, there were two distinct muzzle flashes, coming from subguns set to three-round bursts that swept the corridor in the direction of the stairs, their thundering sound punctuated by a short-lived scream from the opposite direction.

Cassie Gibson shouted a warning as the two young men on the far side of the hallway surged toward the gunfire and flashes punctuating the dark fog. Dust from the fired upon walls now drifted in the air and depleted their visibility even more. Grimacing, she watched the young man who had been leading the charge hit the ground as he bolted past the opening of a small side corridor. He was dead already, she could tell from the final sound she heard from his direction but there had been no sound otherwise, no report of a gun above the more distant bursts being fired ahead. The man who had been just behind him fell in his attempt to stop. Gibson and the other two CTU agents began firing as he went down, falling out of the field of fire, driving down the other agent's killer in a hail of bullets. Entering the proper range as they ran forward, their next shots went in the direction of the muzzle flashes ahead.

A strange silence settled over the darkened, dust-filled corridor as the two gunmen retreated further back into the maintenance corridor, ended in seconds by the gruff sound of Jack Bauer's voice. "Spread out! Get one man each at the ends of this corridor. We've got them isolated."

Cassie dropped to one knee as he came in sight, the assault rifle aimed down the now empty shaft that lead out toward the huge front window, knowing damn well he didn't intend for her to go guard a stairway. "Jack, is there any point giving these guys some options?"

Jack dropped down beside her, watching the remaining five youths obey his order, two of them vanishing into the dimness on either side of the scene. "No, our best chance to rush them now while they're regrouping."

Gibson nodded and waved one of the agents over who had accompanied her down the corridor. "Go back to where Ferguson's body is. Hold that corridor."

Jack looked up as she spoke to him. "Wait. There's another corridor?"

"A hundred yards or so back the way we came, Sir."

Cassie, in turn, looked at Bauer. "You have an idea?"

Bauer didn't answer but continued talking to the man. "Taylor, once you get there, I want you to give it two minutes and then start firing . Move down the hall if they don't fire back. Twenty seconds in parse your shots then hold your fire. Hernandez, go with him. After you stop firing, retreat and back out of the corridor completely. Don't let anyone down it."

"Yes, Sir." Bauer was looking at Gibson stonily when she turned from the young men's departure. 'You lost one?"

Cassie nodded. "Cut his throat by the sound of it. You're down one, too?"

"He's alive for now."

"That leaves you and me and… what's the other kid's name?"

"Quentin; he'll be our cover."

"Quentin." Gibson nodded and lowered her head, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "Jack, what about us?"

He nodded quickly and stood. "Ten seconds after Taylor and Hernandez start firing, move."

Chloe sat back as she heard Bauer speak, feeling the blood drain from her face but keeping silent. She had been at this too long. She could see the whole thing in her mind's eye and she jumped when Buchanan briefly touched her shoulder. "What's going on?"

O'Brian tabbed the mute key. "My sister and Jack are about close in on the people in the Pavilion. They're down two agents, one injured, one dead. They're doing a pincer to flush out the people who attacked the convoy."

"Chloe, if you want…".

"I'm fine! Sir. I mean my sister's one thing but nobody's running comms on Jack but me. Nobody."

Buchanan looked at the back of her head a moment more and relented. Anyone else he would have pulled but she was right, Bauer needed her and together they were still likely CTU's best chance of getting hold of this situation even under such complex circumstances. "We've got a support team assembled, Chloe, but...".

"Yes, Sir. It's too late. I already knew that." Chloe took her finger off the mute button and resumed her wait.

Gibson came back to her feet, setting her own weapon for three round bursts and taking it down from her shoulder. She tucked it under her arm to keep her view as clear as possible. The goal of firing was not precision but fire to herd their quarry in the right direction. She looked over to see Bauer adapting a similar grip on his own rifle while Quentin kept his own raised high between their shoulders.

Jack nodded toward the maintenance corridor and they moved toward the mouth of it in the dust and dim light, Gibson moving slightly faster when she picked up the sound of voices. She put a hand on Bauer's arm and held up four fingers. Jack frowned an acknowledgement, taking his eyes off the corridor long enough to glance at her. The moment his gaze returned to the opening, the muffled sound of gunfire came from the corridor where Agent Ferguson's body now lay.

Ten seconds after the shots sounded, Bauer, Gibson, and Quentin began to move, the first two shooting steadily to create a wall of live fire on each side of the area where they suspected the remaining attackers to be. Unopposed, they moved down the narrow passage, starting to choke on the dust of punctured dry wall. Cassie stopped a few feet later when she felt Bauer's hand on her arm in the darkness. They paused firing momentarily, enough to hear the now sporadic fire of Hernandez and Taylor parsing out their shots. Jack pointed to the wall at the end of the short, dust-filled hallway and then dropped his finger downward.

Gibson traded her rifle for her .45 and moved silently down the wall, her back pressed against it. A foot from the end, she stopped and slid down nearly to the floor, tensing as Bauer and Quentin fired over her head. When they drew even with her, the three of them moved, making the last turn and finding what they hoped. The light coming from the glass front of the Pavilion was much brighter here, showing them the backs of three young Asian men, dressed in jeans and T-shirts but armed, easing their way toward the corridor where the firing had stopped.

The fourth, however, was waiting for them just as they turned, his pistol less than a foot from Bauer's face when they did. It was gone before Jack had time to react, the gunman's wrists firmly in the grip of Gibson as she snapped up from the floor and drove her opponent against the wall. The instant he struck it, she dropped to the floor and pulled him over her head to impact heavily with the ground behind her. Gibson rolled back on top of him in nearly the same motion, her knee landing squarely on his chest and a final burst of air escaping him before he fell unconscious. It was over almost before it started.

Bauer and Quentin stepped past them as Gibson cuffed him, their weapons still raised, intent on the remaining three. All were now facing the two CTU agents, reaching for weapons once again. On the ground between them lay the RPG launcher and a handful of shells. Bauer raised the rifle back to his shoulder, his aim moving back and forth between the three men, "Federal agent! Don't move! Lower your weapons." He watched slightly surprised as the long-haired man in the lead complied, coming to a halt and lowering his hands. His companions were staring at him with angry expressions of betrayal, the one to his right suddenly aiming his weapon at his former comrade.

Jack fired as the weapon changed targets and gave him a clearer shot.

Another shot, however, sounded at the same time, fired by the man who had been "surrendering", his downturned weapon aimed at the nearest of the RPG shell. The blast blew out several of the windows in the glass front of the Pavilion and knocked all of them to the floor. Prepared however, the man who had fired came to his feet first and dragged his two comrades with him.

Bauer picked himself up with a bit of grudging respect despite the fact he was still flashblind. Behind him, not directly exposed to the blast, Gibson was standing and firing over his head into the new haze of dust but in the direction of three figures that were disappearing. She stopped as Bauer and Quentin picked themselves up and the three of them ran forward onto the display gangway over the lobby area, just behind the windows that comprised the massive front of the building.

Jack got hold the last of them as he fled toward the hallway Taylor and Hernandez were now holding. He swung the bald man around delivered three blows before his would be opponent had raised his weapon again. Next to him Quentin had engaged the long-haired man who had fired on the small explosive. The agent had managed to disarm him but the Asian man was meeting him blow for blow as they struggled.

Jack blocked the low swing to his gut and caught the thick arm delivering it, using the momentum to pull the heavier man forward and then kick his legs out from under him. He hit the floor on one knee and yelled out at the joint broke. Not trusting the pain to keep him inoperable, Jack caught him across the temple with an elbow, driving his head against the metal railing and sending him sprawling to the hard decking.

Bauer turned to help the others just in time to see Agent Quentin drop bonelessly to floor, his neck at an inhuman angle.

He was on top of the younger man's killer before the body had made it completely to the ground, delivering a blow to the long-haired man that splattered blood onto the wall. Astride the man's chest as he fell, Bauer drew back for another and had a flashview of Cassie Gibson facing the last of the would-be assassins as he dove toward her, hunched low as if intending to force her off the balcony and over the railing. Bauer saw the gleam just as he moved past.

"Cassie! Knife!" He had time to yell nothing more as his own opponent's fist caught him across the ribs. Bauer lashed out before the pain even registered, his right fist backhanding the long-haired man as he turned to try and push Bauer off of him. The attempt to rise did more damage than the blow, putting his nose directly in the path of Bauer's hand as he turned and driving the bone straight up into his brain as it broke.

Jack looked up from the dead man beneath his bloodied fist for only a moment then jumped to his feet, ready to help Gibson, his gun returning to his hand. A split second's observation however, let him know that there was no way he could safely fire and be sure not to strike the woman. Both she and her opponent were moving too fast to track as they traded blows. He scowled when he saw that Gibson was unable as yet to fight where she was most comfortable; with the knife in play she had to keep the short but wiry man close.

His heart pounding, Jack realized the best thing he could do was stay clear. His presence would be a distraction that Gibson didn't need. She caught his eye for an instant, the only amount of time she needed, however, to warn him off on her own. …and long enough to let Bauer know that she was toying with her opponent, was his better, and for her own reasons was drawing the battle out.

She got what she needed several long seconds later then found an opening to drive her right elbow into her opponent's throat and send him reeling back, back far enough that she could regain the distance that was her usual ally. She spun away from him, her raised leg snapping out at the last moment, and her right heel connecting with his temple with a crack. He staggered and made a final leap forward that let her get hold of his knifehand and side step him, twisting it beneath and under him as he made one last dazed attempt to drive it into her heart.

For a numb yet terrifying moment, Jack Bauer thought that the knife had met its intended target so pained was the expression on Gibson's face. With crippling relief he realized the pain was pure revulsion as she straightened from her final position and the body fell to the floor. Her hands were completely red with blood and she stood for a long moment, those hands trembling before her as she stood undecided if she should wipe it off on her own clothing or let it drip. In contrast her own face was pale as she dragged in each lungful of air. With no need for it now, Jack quickly removed his vest and stripped off his shirt, using it to wipe her hands and then pulling her away from the railing before the thinning dust let her realize how far up they were as well.

"Cassie?"

Gibson looked up when he called her name and swallowed, coughing on the dust now visible as tiny motes in the light coming through the front of the building. "I'm okay. I just… this isn't why I became a cop. This…," She held onto his hands for a long moment and calmed herself. "I'm sorry. I've just never killed someone… like that. I didn't even know he was armed until you told me. I should have… Damn." She took another deep breath and returned his grip again, about to speak when a tiny, frightened voice sounded in both their ears.

"Sis? Jack?"

Gibson reached up and pressed the comm to her ear as if a switch had been thrown in her head; she was distantly amazed that the device had stayed with her. "He's fine," she answered, forgetting temporarily that Chloe was addressing them both. "Uh… we're fine but we've lost two of these guys and we've got a third man down."

Chloe O'Brian wiped the tears from her face with quick swipes and forced her nerves to settle for one last time. "Teams are on the way in. Get the hell back here." She pulled the comm from her ear and stood up, barely noticing Sophie as the other analyst helped her into the restroom and held her head as she leaned over the sink.

Agents Taylor and Hernandez arrived at a run down the corridor they had been holding, staring at the carnage that now covered the floor, looking up at the shattered windows of the front of the Pavilion and the one perfectly square opening where the glass had been removed to allow the RPG to be fired. They stopped short of the man and the woman leaning against the back wall and shouldered their weapons, Hernandez retrieving Bauer's vest from the floor. "We were holding the corridor and heard the explosion. This all happened that fast?"

Shrugging the vest back on over his dark undershirt, Jack nodded. "We've got medical and recovery teams moving in. Make sure that they know there are still live shells in here. Only one of them exploded. I'm getting Detective Gibson out of here."

"Yes, Sir."

Jack nodded and took Gibson's elbow. She was quiet as he steered her back in the direction they had come and then outside. This time they went out the front doors of the Pavilion, crunching their way across a sea of broken glass that had been created by the snipers who had tracked them in here and the RPG that had exploded several stories above them. Out in the street it was obvious the stand-off had ended. Emergency vehicles were clogging the boulevards; sirens filled the air and medical responders were as common as those who were armed. Now free to move, the helicopter had landed in the street. Gibson turned to look up at the shattered windows of the Pavilion as they came out of its shadow and then pulled her phone free of one the pockets of her borrowed CTU fatigues. "Hell of a twenty minutes, Jack."

He stopped when they reached the curb, staring out across the wide boulevard and scanning for one person amongst the nearly 100 securing the area and removing the dead and wounded. He spotted Griffin as he supervised the herding of the suspects they had also captured into the back of a van in shackles. Griffin muttered something to the agent beside him and ran over to join them. "We got three out of five of them, Sir. Near as we can figure they came in with a tour group last night and hid themselves in the building. They had blue-prints and standard Heckler and Koch firearms. One thing odd is that they all seem to be in one family."

"We'll figure out who they are soon enough," Gibson answered. "We got two of our own still alive. Any word on Curtis Manning?"

"CTU Medical picked him up first."

Gibson nodded, "Thanks, Marcus."

The young agent looked between the haggard-looking man and woman, worried but opting to keep quiet. "I'm needed back for debrief about the Concert Hall. See you at HQ."

Jack met the younger man's eyes solidly. "Good job, Mr. Griffin. Congratulations."

"Thank you, Sir." With that the young agent was gone, darting back across the street. Bauer turned from him to cast a worried look at Gibson but she was already watching him carefully as well, her eyes no longer glazed with shock. "I'm pulling my new rank. Let's get you out of here." Bauer nodded but held on to the tension still gripping him. He needed it until they were away, until he was out of sight of everyone. Gibson this time steered him toward a black-and-white parked a dozen yards off, its officer speaking into the radio. She leaned in and spoke to him and Jack watched with dull gratitude as she accepted the keys and opened the doors then touched her comm. "Sis, we're on our way in."

"Uh, Detective, this is Agent Sophie MacKinnon. I'll give Chloe a heads up."

"Sorry, thanks."

xxxxxx

Audrey Raines scanned the mission reports coming in around her, from a dozen screens where CTU Medical, LAPD, Homeland Security, and the three hospitals were gathering data and sharing distribution information. The DOD had little to do but monitor the situation now. She pushed her chair back and stared at the aftermath of the mayhem, violence, and chaos, at the control being forced upon it, at the people who faced it with calm, at the world Jack had found himself immersed in once again. He had been thrust into it after the traumas he'd experienced, shut some part of himself down, risen to it and taken command of it, unable to stop himself. It was a world that at some point would consume him again. Nothing she could offer him would protect him from being drawn in, even his love for Kim and certainly not what she had thought was his love for her. Audrey Raines secured her currently useless station and stood up, her eyes scanning the operations center until she spotted Chloe O'Brian standing next to the door to the main corridor. The analyst turned as Raines closed on her, not meeting her eyes for a moment.

"Jack's okay."

"Good, thank you." Audrey took a quick, uncomfortable breath in the pause that followed then looked up again. "Your sister?"

"She's fine. She killed somebody though. I think it was kinda' gross."

Audrey nodded and looked away again. "Tell Jack I'm glad he's okay."

Chloe stared at the other blond woman for a long moment, realization and suspicion creeping into her awareness. Her eyes narrowed sharply. "Where are you going?"

"To apologize to Kim. I'm sure Jack will tell you why if he hasn't already."

Chloe stared across the operations center for several moments after Audrey was gone, forgetting her immediately when she saw two familiar figures approaching her. Cassie broke into a run the instant their eyes met, bolting away from Bauer and scooping her sister up in her arms, her bloodied hands forgotten. She lifted Chloe off the floor by several inches and her held her before dropping her back down. Cassie kissed her sister's cheek as she hit the ground and then gripped her elbows firmly as she started to retreat, her voice a tight whisper as she lingered near her ear. "I know what you've always meant about him now."

Chloe looked up as Cassie stepped back, pretending she'd heard nothing. "They need you in Debrief."

"Any of those bastards in a condition to talk?"

"Three should be when they get here."

Gibson looked between Bauer and her sister and she stepped back from the latter completely. "Is Curtis still out of it?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Then I'll stop by Debrief and tell them I'm going down to Interrogation first." With a final slap on Bauer's arm, Gibson was gone, heading in the direction of Debrief, not even bothering to wash her hands first.

Neither Chloe or Jack moved for a long moment but as soon as Bauer's hand lifted in her direction, the woman closed the distance between them, their lips seeking one another's fiercely, Chloe grunting in frustration as she felt the bullet-proof vest between them. It took them both a moment to recall where they were and move apart, a fierce blush darkening O'Brian's face despite her grimaced smile. "I'm glad you're okay."

"I could tell." He smiled thinly but she could see the pain still on him, the effect of the wake of death that would now take even longer to fade. She moved closer to him again, this time taking his hand.

"They want you in Debrief, too, but Dr. Colson said he wants to see you first."

Jack Bauer sighed and looked across the buzzing operations center, pulling her with him as he retreated farther into the corridor, away from the dozens of eyes that were stealing furtive glances at them despite the heated activity now continuing in the aftermath of the attack. When they were out of sight, he pulled her close again, drinking in the scent of her hair, remembering what it had felt like to awaken completely safe in her arms. "To Hell with Colson, right now I need you."

Chloe felt her heart pounding once more, this time with a feeling she welcomed instead of dreaded, tears falling from her eyes as she kissed him again. She had thought this moment impossible until now, even as he'd slept in her arms, even as he cried, even as she'd known he was stumbling to her through the darkened streets of Los Angeles. Weird Chloe. Rude Chloe. Bitch Chloe…. Never Would Be Good Enough for Jack Bauer Chloe. Their friendship was circumstance but more than that it was acceptance, it was trust, and it was inescapably, always, no matter how hard to face, truth.

Chloe backed up when the kiss broke and his head lifted from her shoulder, flushed, almost fevered, his breath loud to her ears. His eyes, however, were calm and intense as they lasered in on her own, never flinching, never looking away, already knowing her reply when she finally spoke, "Good, because I need you, too."


	29. Chapter 29

**Years of being stared at and glanced after had made Chloe O'Brian somewhat indifferent to the unwanted attention of her co-workers; it took her a moment to register that Jack was suddenly looking a bit, if not sheepish, then overly self-aware as they drew the attention of the few people who suddenly passed them in the hall. She stepped back from him reluctantly and shrugged. "I'd better get down to Interrogation before my sister has Chinese for dinner and forgets to get any information."**

"**I'm coming with you," Bauer responded, taking a step in her wake, pulling up when she turned back to him, her lower lip in her teeth.**

"**I don't know if that's a good idea, Jack. I mean, you know this gets intense. You've, you don't need to be around… you know," Chloe scowled, not needing to go on. **

**His head dropped but he never lost eye contact with her, even as a slow rage darkened the tired planes of his face. "You'll be there. I'll be fine, besides… all that time they worked on me, they didn't ask me ten questions and they sure as hell didn't get any answers."**

**Chloe felt a knot form in her throat in seconds; they had tortured him just to torture him, had acted without reason and for none. She swallowed and shook her head. "They're still gonna' pay for that Jack. They'll reschedule the hearing but we have to see if Cassie or one of us can find out what happened now." **

**Jack shook his head quickly. "I don't know if they'll actually let her in there."**

**A look of guilt crossed O'Brian's face and her lips ended up on the left side of her nose for a moment. "They will. You'll see." **

**The suite of four interrogation rooms was busy enough that they needed to wait to go through the main doors that lead to the observation galleries outside each room. Cuffed and shackled, the clutch of Asian men who occupied the first rooms were the shooters who had been taken from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, two held in each. They were alone but silent, certainly aware that they were being monitored. **

**In the third, the only one fit enough to have been brought back from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was sitting at a steel table, his cuffed hands chained to a loop of metal bolted to the table. It was the gunman who had first confronted them and found himself unconscious on the floor seconds after doing so. At worst Gibson might have cracked one or two of his ribs. He was pale and grimacing with each breath, his long, black hair partially covering his eyes as he watched the blond woman leaning toward him, with pure menace, her hands splayed out on the table. They hadn't turned up the volume; what she was shouting was anyone's guess but the boy looked like he was torn between crying and ripping through the bolted restraints keeping him in check. **

**Despite her worry for him, it was Jack who slid an arm around O'Brian when they drew near enough to the small cluster of people watching the proceedings, hearing her gasp when she saw her sister's hands. Gibson had stripped off her flak jacket and rolled back the sleeves of her borrowed fatigues. Both hands and her wrists were stained with drying blood. "My God."**

"**The last man she took down had a knife. She had to turn it on him. I got most of it off her and got her away from the balcony," Jack offered, not caring who saw his arm around O'Brian now. **

**Chloe's mouth cringed back. "Thanks. God, Mom's gonna' kill me."**

**Jack found himself smiling as he watched Gibson stalk around the boy, silent now, glaring, waiting, her expression unchanging when the boy began to shout back. "I think your sister can take up for herself and you don't have to tell your mother."**

**Chloe looked up at him for a split second. "You don't know our mother. I mean, we could label this whole thing classified except it'll be all over the news and the only thing classified about it was your identity. Oh crap." She put aside her worry over what her mother would be saying as her sister spun around and leaned over the table again, her hands splayed in front of the boy, just out of his reach as his fingers clawed toward them. Chloe turned as a man came to a halt next to her, an Asian man wearing CTU sweats followed by Bill Buchanan.**

"**Let's see if she's gotten anything out of him." The Asian man said, then reached down to the monitoring controls and turned up the volume. **

**Jack's head snapped up as he did, his eyes widening. "She…."**

"…**speaks Japanese", Chloe finished, smirking slightly then adding, "and she was an officer on site. I told you she had a way in. She speaks a little Chinese, too. That probably wasn't at the top of her "Share with Jack" list." **

**The look of surprise faded slowly from Bauer's face, replaced with a frown of consideration. It made sense if she had spent a year in Japan that she would have some command of the language. "No, I suppose it wasn't but what the hell is she doing speaking Japanese?"**

**Chloe shrugged and winced. "You didn't piss them off, did you?."**

**Jack turned to watch her for a moment, no trace of humor in her expression, a fact which brought a smile to his own face as the morning's events continued to fade into perspective. He turned to the other agent who had joined them. "Toshi, what are they saying?"**

"**She's telling him… he has given up his honor, attacked defenseless people, but he can regain some small part of it… with the truth. He's telling her he will not answer to a woman." He paused as the exchanged stopped, his head shaking as Gibson suddenly leaned forward and laid a key on the metal table then began speaking again, quietly and slowly, letting her body language provide the threat. "She saying she's not a woman as far as he's concerned, she's his better. She's his… captor. She defeated him and she has her honor from her friends,… from her country,… for her family. She's asking if he knew the man she killed. If he was his friend, he's unworthy to avenge him. Oh, that did it."**

**The other three CTU employees looked at each other quickly as the last sentence left him, then glanced back into the interrogation chamber as the boy made a half-hearted, immediately curtailed lunge in the detective's direction, falling over the table, blood spattering as the cuffs cut into his wrists. Gibson never moved; he fell back into the chair, however, seconds later, shaking uncontrollably and finding no pity in the cold eyes of the Caucasian woman looming over him. Between gasps and shouts of rage interspersed with feeble, tearful utterances, the boy began to talk, rattling on for several minutes, missing that the bitter look on the woman's face softened slightly. She backed away when she got what she needed and, quite obviously even to those only able to speak English, told him to shut up. She stepped to the door and stood watching him, her bloodied hands now folded out of sight.**

**The interpreter turned off the volume and leaned against the one-way glass, "He's told her what we need. I'll let her tell you everything but…," he glanced over his shoulder at Gibson began to work the lock, "that man she killed… was his brother."**

**Forgetting Buchanan was there or not caring, Jack Bauer took Chloe in his arms as she turned toward him and rested her head on his still-unshed vest. Its presence seemed to remind her, however, where she was and she brushed back the tears in time for Cassie to join them, her eyes taking them all in but settling on Bauer. After a moment the vestige of a smile came to her lips. "It's over; you're safe, Jack. This was nothing to do with the Chinese government. It was a… private arrangement. One of the detainees Curtis brought back has relatives in the city. He managed to get a coded message to them past his public defender, told them to arrange his death and the deaths of the others before they… suffered American justice."**

**Chloe shrugged, glad to feel Bauer's hand now resting discreetly at the small of her back. "But you were speaking Japanese?"**

**Cassie nodded and took a deep breath, more herself again as each word came out. "Maybe I should save all this for the debrief."**

**Silent until now, Jack suddenly spoke up and Chloe felt the hand hidden between them twist into the fabric of her blouse. "No, I… I want to know now."**

**Cassie drew in a breath, her eyes going to Buchanan who glanced quickly at Bauer and nodded. "Go ahead."**

"**I tried Japanese because I recognized their fighting technique. Just turned out I was right. The people who attacked the convoy are a disgraced family of American Yakuza - hired by the family of a prisoner named Li Chen Soong. Their money laundering operation had been shut down; they were bankrupt. They fronted enough money to bribe one of the guards at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and hire an electronics expert to get them into the Pavilion. It was supposed to be a suicide mission for the half of the family that went in. If they could take on our government and kill such important prisoners, the rest would regain some of … what they regard as… honor. There was almost nothing we could have done to root these people out, Mr. Buchanan. There was none of that chatter my sister tracks and no one talking on the streets. You keep this kind of disgrace private. Oh, and we'll find the bodies of the guard and the electronics expert in the buildings. Seems they didn't want to actually part with the bribe or the retainer."**

**Jack stood still for a long moment, the high-pitched roar of blood in his ears and the blackness edging his vision catching him off-guard as the relief settled on him. He latched onto the nearest chair as the interpreter brushed past them to go and try for more information from the boy. Bauer wiped a hand over his suddenly dry mouth as Chloe steered him into the chair and knelt down. Cassie, her complexion back to its normal warm color, jerked her head at Buchanan then at the door. After a moment's pause he followed her.**

**Chloe hunched down on the floor before Bauer and rested her hand on his thigh, slapping it lightly when he looked away. "Hey, not allowed."**

**He looked at her immediately, his lips pulling back. "Yes, Ma'am."**

"**Are you okay?"**

**His eyes stayed focused on her but his thoughts withdrew. "I don't know. Most people wouldn't be, and right now I feel the most… okay… I've felt in months." Bauer's eyes slowly lost their inward focus as O'Brian smiled up at him from where she knelt on the floor; she slowly reached up a hand to cradle his cheek.**

"**You're okay because you're Jack, because when those kids and my sister needed you, you knew what to do; you took over; you saved a lot of lives."**

**Bauer turned his face into her hand, sighing and closing his eyes. "Not alone. I couldn't have done it without you, without knowing you trusted me even with your sister out there. You never questioned me, never gave me a reason to doubt myself."**

**O'Brian shrugged awkwardly but her eyes never left his face. "I couldn't give you any reason to doubt yourself; I didn't have any." She took a sharp breath, steeling herself as if for a confession, her lips twitching back. "Jack, Buchanan had me make the call… about giving you command. When we were in the safehouse, I know you thought I was just seeing you… hurt and sick… and with your head messed up but---", O'Brian paused, fumbling for words and scowling until she succeeded, "…that wasn't what I saw, Jack. I saw how hard you wanted to get over what they did, as fast as you could. Even when you were throwing up, or crying, or holding onto me in the water, you were fighting back. You were still Jack; you were the bravest man I'd ever seen." She blinked and the tears that had been looming in her eyes fell down her cheeks, salting the kiss that fell upon her lips as he drew her into his arms.**

**XXXXXXXX**

**Cassie Gibson turned on Bill Buchanan when they were a dozen yards away from the door to Interrogation, her lips compressing into a familiar scowl. "The team that went into the Concert Hall, what's their status?"**

"**They all made it out. One of them was slightly hurt in a fall, believe it or not. They brought out four suspects, killed one. The Federal Marshals took the biggest hit but the prisoners all survived. The one that go thrown from the van is critical though. We don't know if she'll make it."**

**Gibson nodded slowly, her eyes unfocused. "You know we lost two of those boys in the Pavilion, one of the under my proxy command, one of them when it got to be hand-to-hand. I was there when they both went down. I know it was situational; I more or less got deputized way beyond what my position here is but I want to speak to their families. Curtis won't know what happened, CTU or not I was an officer on site, and there's no need for Jack to be handle that, not now."**

**Buchanan looked at the blond woman for a long moment, a trace of affection showing in his eyes. "Of course not. I appreciate that; we'll both speak to them, Detective, and thank you."**

**Gibson shrugged, her eyes on the concrete floor. "I'm a cop, Mr. Buchanan. I had as much duty out there as anyone else when it went wrong but Jack was the one who made it all work. Just don't assume anything from that, okay?" She looked up to see him nod slowly, his eyes leaving hers to glance back at the closed door of Interrogation.**

"**I wouldn't ask anything of the sort from him. You have my word. I suspect you'd like to get cleaned up before the debrief?"**

**Gibson nodded and smiled at him marginally, heading into the bathroom and standing before the tall mirror, looking at the reflection that confronted her with wasted anger and exhaustion. Closing her eyes she stripped off the fatigue shirt and looked at the sharp muscles of her arms before focusing on the blood still present on her hands and wrists, still sticky under her well-trimmed fingernails. She'd seen the unhappy scowl in the mirror before, on her sister's face as she stood beneath Jack Bauer's arm, leaving no doubt who was taking care of whom at that moment. Gibson turned the hot water on and slid her hands into the flow, watching it darken against the ceramic, wondering why blood was turning everything black, and then wondering when the buzzing in her ears would stop. **

**At a guess ten minutes had passed before she'd stopped vomiting and was aware of a cold clump of paper towels being held against her head and wiped over her face and neck when they finally stopped. Slowly regaining her faculties, Cassie turned and was surprised to see her benefactor was Kim Bauer, her eyes narrowed with concern.**

"**Are you okay now?"**

**Cassie managed a brief smile after rinsing her mouth. "Yeah, just a breakfast arguing with the rest of the morning. Thanks. I'd rather be embarrassed than alone right now."**

**A look of slight guilt and curiosity entered the younger woman's expression. "I heard on the news something terrible was going on. I was hoping it didn't involve my father but I knew---. What happened to you?"**

"**I had an idiot decide to take suicide-by-cop to a one-on-one level and I just told his kid brother I killed him. He didn't appreciate that I'd saved him a lot of birthday gifts." She looked away and scowled at herself when she saw the girl flinch at her confession or the ill-placed humor. "I'm sorry. I'm still getting my head straight. The important thing for you is that the hit involved your dad but he wasn't the target. The people who held him captive were. When Curtis was hurt and the second-in-command was killed, your father stepped up and took over. He saved a lot of lives; he saved mine again when we got in close. Everything he'd been through - he was able to put it aside."**

**Kim Bauer was silent for a long moment, at last nodding and offering the older woman a weak smile, "It had to be him, right?"**

**Cassie Gibson's expression hardened slightly and she fought her own tongue before she said something even her sister would have found appalling. She was well aware her own emotional state wasn't yet the best and Kimberly Bauer was again seeing her father thrown back into the world that had cost them both so much. "Honey, in this case, it did. I'm a detective by a couple of weeks; I'm not S.W.A.T. Everyone else out there was younger than you. They were there for experience. The cops I hand-picked to control access and traffic, I watched them to use themselves as human shields to get the civilians out of danger. It all went wrong in seconds and once Curtis and the guy driving Jack were down, your Dad had the best chance of creating a strategy that put an end to it. We even brought some of the bastards in alive."**

**Kim shook her head slowly, her own expression tightening. "I'm not blaming him and I know this job messes with your head even if you don't go through what my father has, but it's sucking him in. He'll end up back out there. If he's released for full duty, this will happen again. He couldn't stop when it cost him my mother. He even used her being dead as part of a cover." Bauer started to walk away and stopped when Gibson, now sitting back against the counter, laid a still wet hand on her arm.**

"**You loved your mother a lot, didn't you?"**

**Bauer turned, her eyes narrowed with disgust. "Of course, I did."**

"**Well, then try and remember that she married your father knowing this was his life or accepting it when it became his life, either way. She must have loved him enough to be strong for both of them at times like this, so maybe the best way you can really honor and respect your mother is to be there for him now. Would you prefer he just let everyone else be killed? Is that the kind of father you'd be happier having?" Gibson let go of her and stood. "Whatever you decide, Kim, just don't do it for a couple of days, at least give him that much." Gibson's expression mellowed slightly and she took a long breath. "Thanks again for looking after me, and remember I practically a stranger." She managed a smile when the younger woman finally looked up then gathered up her blood-soaked shirt and went out the door, leaving a thoughtful and slightly chastened Kimberly Bauer on her own.**

**XXXXXXX**

**The kiss ended too soon for either of their likings but Jack felt the time pressing in upon them and he moved back reluctantly, Chloe's mouth leaving his at the last moment possible. She stood up slowly, flushed and still smiling vaguely as they headed out the door. They were half-way to the glass-walled briefing room when a familiar voice cut through the general buzz of computers and personnel. "Dad! Dad!"**

**Jack Bauer came to a stop, turning in what he thought was the direction of his daughter's voice and finding her in his arms before the move was completed. He embraced her tightly as she curled into his chest. "Baby, what are you doing here?"**

**Kim stepped back, her expression tightening for a moment when she saw he was wearing a vest. "I saw the news, when they said it involved a federal terrorism case I thought it might be you."**

"**I wasn't the target. Someone was trying to kill the people who held me. We lost people but we stopped them."**

**Chloe looked up at Bauer and down at his daughter, "They were gonna' kill everybody, but your Dad figured out how they were set up and turned everything back on them. He did really great."**

**Kim nodded and glanced up at her father with a strained smile. "I know. I talked to Detective Gibson."**

**Jack seemed not to have heard her, obviously still focused on his own need for her to understand what had occurred. "Curtis was hurt. His second in command was killed. Everyone else from CTU was a recruit. I didn't… I didn't have a choice, Kim. I didn't do it becau---."**

"**I know you didn't, Dad. I know." Her words were the ones he needed to hear but he could see that the unintended foray had left its mark. The look lingered on her face for a moment but then was replaced by another one, regret. "Dad, I'm sorry about the other night at Audrey's. I knew about the job stuff and the plane tickets but I didn't know about the rest of it, especially not springing some surgeon on you. I just wanted you to be okay; I thought being back in D.C. would make things easier, but I shouldn't have let her hit you with all that, not after how great everything else had been that night."**

**Chloe watched cautiously as he embraced her again, resting his chin on her head and accepting her apology. This was the first clue she'd had about exactly what had gone on when he'd stumbled out into a chilly autumn night. Apparently Audrey had made plans for the rest of Jack's life that hadn't involved Jack. Brilliant. She bit her tongue and thought about backing away but Jack reached down suddenly and took her hand in his own. "It's all right, Kim. It was for the best." He said nothing more for a moment, just watched his daughter's softening expression as her eyes went to his hand wrapped around O'Brian's and up to the warm blush on the older woman's face. "I know she meant well, Kim, but she meant well for whom she wants me to be. I tried to fool myself thinking I could forget the things I've done and were done to me. I listened to her lying when I was losing everything. …and all of that was before I was taken. I can't expect her to deal with who I am now. I gave her a chance and twice she proved to me she couldn't."**

**Kim nodded, saying nothing as she remembered Audrey's apology for dragging her into the disastrous evening that had nevertheless turned out for the best for her father. However rude, however sharp and direct Chloe had ever been with her, she had never been anything less than honest, had never done anything but what was right by her father. Dragging her or her father into a scene of well-intentioned emotional blackmail was something Chloe would never have done. Kim looked up at the older woman and smiled thinly. "Whatever was going on, you always tried to be my friend. Sometimes I wasn't old enough or smart enough to know it… and I know I worried less about my Dad when you were around so maybe you could keep him out of trouble."**

**Chloe managed a snorted laugh and looked between the two of them, unlocking her fingers from Jack's to gently run her hand over his back.**

**XXXXXX**

**Audrey Raines stood close to the concrete wall as the unfamiliar sound of quiet laughter echoed off the steel and glass around her, watching with regret as Jack Bauer stood smiling at his daughter, leaning slightly to his left as Chloe O'Brian's hand traveled the length of his back, touching him absently where her own hands had withdrawn, touching him in a way she never would have months ago. Raines started to back away quickly as Jack turned coincidentally her direction, a smile on his face that faded when he saw her. He hesitated for a moment and then took a step in her direction as Chloe's hand slid from him. "Audrey."**

**Raines stopped and stood her ground, looking away from him after a moment and letting him watch as her eyes went slowly across each feature of the room, for a few moments following the pair of heavily armed men who walked through the operations center, laughing themselves, one brandishing an imaginary weapon as he told a story to the other. Her eyes dropped as Bauer came near. "I'm sorry, Jack, about the other night, about a lot of things. I needed to move on. I thought you would, too. I needed this to be over. " **

**Bauer studied her for a long moment, remembering what Winters had said, how Audrey had always seen the results and the numbers, never until she came here the real job, then he remembered his fingers around her throat. "I do, too, but that can't mean a desk in Washington, Audrey. I'm not that man you saw there and you can't live with the man you saw here, and now all the things that made me that man are even more a part of me. If I never work here another day in my life, I'll still have done the things you saw me do and worse things you haven't, and now I've been through to much to let any of it go. This hurts too much for both of us now."**

**Audrey stood silent, letting the truth wash over her. His enforced time with Chloe and the time he had chosen to spend with her sister hadn't been their undoing, her own actions had been, her inability to cope had been, the illusion of who she hoped he was had been. Raines finally moved, stepping close enough to take hold of his shoulders and give him a slow, chaste kiss. "Be happy, Jack, however someone can in this place, be happy and good luck with wherever you go now. I'm just too afraid of where that might be." She stepped away from him, her hands dropping to hold his one last time as she backed away then turned and headed down the concrete hallway, never once looking back. **

**Jack stood watching until even Raines' shadow disappeared and then turned, regret and gratitude etched into his face as his eyes sought out O'Brian's. She was scowling only slightly as she stood next to his daughter and Jack realized as he watched them that what might bring his daughter back in his life was the example of someone strong enough to understand it, whatever it had been or would be, someone like Terri had been. Kim reached for his hand as he approached but Chloe continued to stand perfectly still. There was no sense of approval on her, no sense of justification, no sense of assumption even now, only concern and a sense of subdued regret akin to his own. She looked away when Kim finally spoke, her father's hand in both her own. "Is Audrey going back to D.C.?"**

**Jack shrugged his shoulders very slightly, his eyes on her face. "She didn't say. She just wanted to tell me to…to be happy." **

**Kim lifted his hand and kissed the back of it, her lips pressing for a moment over a few wounds he hadn't noticed. "Well, maybe on this one thing you should listen to her." She offered him a flitting smile and went to step away, only to have his grip tighten as she relaxed her hand to release him. **

"**Kim, the way things have been going, I was hoping…. Are… are you…?" His voice broke again before the question was complete and his daughter felt a stab of pity through the confusion and the fear that still filled her. **

**Her lips tight, Kim looked at Chloe, who still stood silent, her eyes on the floor, and knew that his involvement with her probably meant that CTU would continue to be a part of their lives no matter what her father did. Harsh as they had seemed at the time, however, she remembered Detective Gibson's warning that she'd likely be in danger as long as her father was alive no matter what he did. "Barry wants me to go to Stockholm with him, just for a few days, and I need some time, Dad. I'll call you when we're back, okay?"**

**Jack nodded slowly, not quite able to keep the disappointment off his downcast face as his daughter embraced him, kissing him on the cheek and then the lips before backing away and circling around him. He didn't turn to watch her leave, didn't want the sight of her retreating back in his memory. His gaze when to Chloe instead and she looked up as soon as she realized his eyes were on her. "I guess they need us in Debrief by now."**

**Bauer nodded and they turned, heading for the glass-walled room and parting to either side of the table to sit down, O'Brian beside her sister. Gibson's hands looked like she'd scrubbed them to do surgery but her expression had returned to its usual, barely concealed smirk. "Okay, so it didn't turn out the way I thought."**

"**Yeah, I guess this means Mom will give you another flak vest for Christmas. What is it now? Four?"**

"**Five. You forgot my birthday… like always." Gibson's cheekiness faded a few seconds later and she glanced down the table at Bauer, her voice dropping. "I saw Boney. She left him, didn't she?"**

**Chloe glanced around the table and saw that they were waiting for Curtis yet. He was walking slowly but walking, Nurse Takamura guiding him on the side where his arm wasn't in a sling. They had a minute yet. "She just made it official, I guess."**

**Gibson looked away from the slowly approaching figure of Curtis Manning and glanced at Bauer as he wrote note after note on the legal pad in front of him. "It's not your fault, Monkey Butt. She not only dug her own grave, she bought her own shovel and pulled the dirt in on top of herself. You didn't use your situation with Jack and once I got done being a… jackass… I even pushed them together so whatever happens, we're the ones who made sure she had her chance."**

**A smile flitted its way across O'Brian's face at that, the feeling of guilt dying a sudden death. "I never thought of it like that."**

**Gibson offered her sister a lop-sided smile and sighed. "That's because you're a "people idiot"… with one glaringly obvious exception."**

**XXXXXXX**

**The shifts were changing when the debrief finally ended and Bill Buchanan ordered them all off duty. Chloe and Jack remained as the others began to filter out, offering goodbyes and congratulations and regrets, unsurprised as they watched Gibson bluntly explain to Curtis Manning that he'd earned a police escort home. He hadn't offered much in the way of argument as she did, nor had Bauer when he was told that Gibson and Buchanan had already made arrangements to notify Ferguson and Quentin's families of their deaths. Chloe stood up as the room finally emptied, circling the table and sitting against it next to Jack Bauer, her notes rolled up in her hand. She leaned for a moment and then sat down in the chair next to his, not sure where to begin and not wanting to have her mouth get the better of her again. It was Jack who finally spoke, first heaving a long, slow sigh that was covering a yawn.**

"**I've got a problem."**

**Chloe looked up then, glad he'd spoken first. "What?"**

"**I think your sister just rejected me in favor of the next wounded soul."**

**O'Brian's laugh ended in a snort. "Yeah and with.. what do they call it… ulterior motives?" She blushed slightly but she was wearing a crooked smile that touched her eyes in the dim light. "I have to tell you something, too, then." **

"**Go on."**

**She stared at him for a long moment and then the words came out in a rush. "When we were in the safehouse, well, I…. I don't keep house like… Okay, my apartment is a complete mess. It's full of computer stuff and laundry day usually involves hunting for the clothes, oh, and I don't have cable. I don't watch enough TV, and the sink is full of dishes. I could hire a maid but I don't want some stranger in my stuff, and you already know I can't cook but if you want to stay with me until you get your house open again… you can." There, it was over.**

**Jack stared at O'Brian for a long moment, the smile coming to his face slowly as he took hold of her hands. "Best offer I've had all day."**

**XXXXXXX**

**It was as she'd promised, an apartment that looked partially like a vandalized electronics store. The mess was nowhere near what she had warned him about but the only smells coming from the kitchen were strong coffee and left over pizza. Three different laptop computers sat on the kitchen table, another was on the coffee table, and a fourth, in pieces, sat on a small worktable against the back wall. The VCR casing was open and a scattering of tools lay on the small entertainment center. The dark curtains fluttered and he realized the window was slightly open. He took it all in as he shut the door behind him and checked to see if it was locked. He threw the deadbolts and turned back to find her staring at him.**

"**I warned you. I haven't quite figured out I'm still not in a dorm."**

**Bauer didn't answer her as his hand fell away from the last check of the locks, his eyes no longer taking in the cluttered apartment, only its usual occupant as she stood in the center of the small living room, realizing she didn't need to make excuses for the clutter or anything else. She stood frozen as he approached her, not quite believing yet that this was real or that she was now free to act on the feelings that she had kept so firmly under control for so long. Bauer sensed her tension and the lingering doubt that she was taking advantage of him as his mouth grazed the back of her neck. She relaxed slightly as he embraced her from behind, his lips moving to brush over her ear, his voice deep and rough with desire when he spoke, his hands shifting to her waist.**

"**Chloe, it's me."**

**She giggled to herself and then so that she could hear him. "Gee, I'm glad to hear that. I thought somebody else was back there."**

"**If he were I'd kill him."**

**O'Brian smirked again, working herself around to return his embrace, the dull, mysterious pains that had been plaguing her arms fading once they were around him. His mouth found hers as they did, the kiss distracting her so completely that she didn't feel his fingers work open the back buttons of her blouse until his hands came in contact with the sensitive skin. She dropped her arms back as he removed her blouse but pushed him back slightly. "Not here. I dropped parts on the floor last night. I don't want to wake up with DELL dented into my butt."**

**Bauer was still smiling when they reached her bedroom, separated from the rest of the rooms by several strings of amber colored beads. They rattled as he pushed her through them and back on the bed. She squirmed back as he pressed forward, her hands tugging the fabric of his fatigue shirt as she did. When she was far enough back, his hands went to the snap on her trousers but she stopped him from going further by freeing enough of his shirt that she needed to pull it over his head to proceed. That accomplished, she let him finish removing her pants, still not quite believing it was Jack Bauer as she watched him do so, his eyes somehow even more intense as passion began to overcome his actions. Chloe felt a sudden giddy, almost eager trepidation come into her mind as he slid her pants from her ankles and tossed them to the floor. It had been a long time since Jack had been with a woman. She didn't know if he'd ever had sex with Diane; it hadn't been her business, nor was it now but if he hadn't it had been a very long time for someone as vital as Bauer, a vitality she once again felt for herself as he moved back within reach and her own hands began working at the top button of his fatigues. **

**Bauer groaned into O'Brian's mouth as some of the pressure in his groin was relieved, squirming to help her as she worked the bunching cloth past his narrow hips with experienced hands. She tossed them to the floor overtop of her own and then turned back, looking down at him with emotions she'd never allowed herself before now. Jack's mind latched onto the image of her looming over him, her lips swollen with desire, her breaths short and her eyes still holding a small edge of worry. Jack reached up as she eased back toward him on the full-size mattress, taking her face in his hand and pulling her to his mouth. Her tongue slipped within it as it had before, when it had been wrong to have given in to her own wants. He reacted as he had then, his jaw becoming slack, inviting the intrusion, moaning a little in a way that made her breath catch as it passed between both their mouths. He was understandably confused when she suddenly withdrew but then pulled him up, smiling lopsidedly as she slid the undershirt he'd forgotten he was wearing from his body. Jack sat up and closed his eyes as he raised his hands above his head and used the opportunity to wrap his arms around her neck when she pulled the material free. **

**Chloe tossed the undershirt somewhere as she dropped to brush her cheek through the fine hairs of his chest, listening to his heart pounding, smiling at the thought that it was for her. **

**She heard it pound even harder as her hands left his sides to travel slowly and deliberately up his back, not stopping when she realized he was suddenly shaking, instinctively know why. She kissed the smooth shoulder beneath her lips and arched her head down to see his erection straining against his briefs. Chloe backed up slightly, reaching down and maneuvering to get both hands on his waist. He sensed what she wanted and lowered himself onto the bed, lifting his hips as she worked his briefs free and turned back, taking in the sight of him waiting for her. The sting of tears came to her eyes as they raised to me his. She slowly laid down beside him, well aware of just how ready she was for him as she settled back by his side, her thighs slick and her center aching.**

**Bauer's eyes closed and his hands twisted into the bed sheets as the scent of her arousal sharpened. He jumped when her hand began to lightly stroke his stomach, the lazy touches slowly moving downward. A sound came from his throat that combined a growl and a moan. He managed to open his eyes to find Chloe staring down at him, a careful smile on her face. She wanted something of him, he could tell as much even in his current state of mind, and he sat up when she asked him to do so, assuming she wanted help with her own still present black panties and bra. She stopped his hand, however, when he reached for her, taking it in both her own and kissing it.**

"**Trust me?"**

**Bauer shook his head and laughed quietly, wanting her – especially after having been celibate for the past years – but wanting to please her as much. "You know that."**

"**I just wanted to hear it." She smiled at him with a touch of guilt but also a touch of devilment in her eyes then reached behind him and grabbed the two pillows that were at the head of the bed. Jack came to his knees at her urging, balancing awkwardly on the flexing surface, and watched with curiosity as she piled the pillows atop one another and guided Bauer down, his hips elevated over the small stack, his erection comfortably clear of the bed. He said nothing, trusting her as she asked, holding his gaze as she moved to kneel beside him. **

**His forehead resting on his crossed arms as he laid face down, Jack Bauer's hands twisted into the bed covers again a moment later, a pleasantly frustrated groan escaping him as he felt Chloe's hand reach beneath his hips and gently begin to stroke his shaft. He felt her warmth as she leaned over him, knees brushing his side, but her next action caught him off-guard and he gasped and flinched, a soft cry escaping him, at the gentle touch of her tongue and then her lips on the small of his back. **

**A violent tremor passed through him but she didn't relent, her lingering wet kissing working their way carefully across his buttocks and then his hips as her hand worked gently on the erection beneath him. He groaned her name twice and then gave up trying to speak, losing himself in the sensations. The blue fitted sheet sprang loose from the corners of the bed as his fingers clenched into the fabric.**

**Chloe felt the tears leave her eyes and wet his back along with her mouth as the sounds of pleasure and relief escaped him, as each marker of torture cut into his flesh became a point of pleasure. She trailed her tongue along his sides and then worked inward, suckling each inflicted ridge of flesh with nurturing warmth and gently blowing upon it as her lips retreated, leaving behind a gentle chill that let him track her progress. **

**Knowing he was now more distracted by her mouth making its way across his back than her hand gently pumping beneath him, she withdrew it for a moment to slicken her fingers with the wealth of her own moisture. She had orgasmed a little each time he'd made a sound. When her hand, now wet and warm, returned to firmly grasp his erection, his back arched up against her still stroking tongue. Another tremor passed through him, strong enough that she did move back this time, the hand she was leaning on reaching up to stroke his hair. "Jack, are you okay?"**

**Bauer knew she was speaking to him, recognized his own name through the fog of pleasure and too many other feelings he couldn't name, all of them overwhelming, and all of them good. He managed to nod, not trusting his voice through tears, and felt her hand return to its place beneath him, his hips flexing gently against her grip. She continued moving upward, his back gleaming with the trail of her suckling and tears. He was shaking, sobbing quietly to himself as her actions and her acceptance overcame him. He was exhausted when she was finished her treatment of his sides and the middle of his back, her hand beneath him still stroking him with dizzying gentleness, his hips still flexing against the pulsing rhythm of her movements. **

**Despite his emotional exhaustion, his hips still bucked downward sharply when her lips fell upon the one place she had yet to touch, the scars that crossed the gentle slope of his back between his shoulder blades, the scars that marked one of the greatest moments of cruelty he had endured. Bauer welcomed the tender confusion that overcame his mind, unable to tell if he was being pleasured more by the hand flexing against his manhood or the lips and tongue stroking their way across the flesh scarred with exacting intent. Whichever it might have been, he lasted only a moment more against them both. **

**Chloe felt the orgasm pass through his body like an electric shock and surge though his erection as she cradled it in a firm grip. She held him and stroked until she felt him slowly soften in her hand. Knowing he was now utterly spent, she guided him back from the small white puddle now on the bed and to his feet long enough to yank the fitted sheet free the rest of the way before the fluid could pass through the material. She tossed it to the floor and they fell back onto the sheets that were left. Jack lay half-conscious but smiling as she threw the pillows back where they had been, and pulled him into her arms, suddenly glad she knew how to deal with a weak and exhausted Jack Bauer.**

**Chloe heaved a long, watery sigh as Jack's head came to rest on the pillow next to her, his blond hair dark with sweat and his eyes looking almost drugged and filled with far too many feelings to name. He lay still and then rallied himself after a moment, his hand reaching up to stroke her face; his lips were dry but there were tears leaking slowly from his eyes, tears accompanied by a fragile smile. "I don't know what to say to you."**

**Chloe captured the hand stroking her face and held his fingers against her lips. "You don't have to say anything. Just let me see you happy. Even before now, that's all I ever wanted for you."**

**A look a shy disappointment slowly touched his face, however, as he nodded and smiled. "I know, but I wanted you, too, wanted to be with you."**

**O'Brian smiled and shook her head, lifting it from the pillow to do so and then propping it in her hand. "You know, this is weird. I'm usually the one who doesn't get it. You were with me, Jack. You trusted me. You gave yourself to me like I never thought anyone could. I've never been more, I don't know… satisfied, happy being with a man as I was just now. I mean… I don't like seeing you, well, crying or whatever usually, but this time it was because you were happy and it was because of me. I never thought I could make anyone feel like you did."**

**Jack lay watching her for several minutes, wanting to say something but knowing that there were only three words that could begin to match the answer she had given. He moved closer to her, close enough to kiss the lips that had a short time ago balanced out the memory of agony with the one of tenderness and pleasure. "I love you."**

**Jack took the fact that he wasn't met with a scowl or a smart remark with another dose of joy. She heard the words and simply believed them, accepted them, and as his head settled on to her shoulder, kissed him slowly… and answered him in kind.**


	30. Epilogue

It had taken them a day to figure out that Chloe O'Brian's apartment was too small for two people, even with Jack having nothi

Author's Notes:

A word of my own before you read the conclusion. At 7:25 pm Eastern time on Dec. 30, 2006 I finished one of the most amazing writing journeys I've personally ever taken. I leave this story a different writer than when I began it months ago, and a better one, I hope. Some of you may even see the difference. I thank all of you who have reviewed for going on this journey with me, being my guides and being my encouragement.

_If you've read this far, however long has passed, please let me know what you think good or bad. I welcome the input and the opportunity to improve, either if I do another fic or compose something else. Nothing you learn goes to waste. Your feedback gives me the chance to become better._

I have had some professional experience the post-traumatic stress, I have been a student of martial arts, and of military strategy and history, all elements that compelled me to bring this story to life. My first inspiration, however, was Kiefer Sutherland's absolutely stunning performance as a gay man dying of AIDS in a movie called "Behind the Red Door", a role as far from Jack Bauer as you might ever imagine but where the image of his vulnerability was an inspiration.

My inclination to even do a Jack and Chloe piece came from that simple and stunning exchange at the end of Day 5 when Jack asks of Chloe to go with him the final mile and take down the President of the United States and, taking one last look at the rest of the friends and coworkers she'll betray to do it, she agrees and offers herself up as a possible traitor if they fail. The plot about Logan started with Chloe's complete trust and ended with Jack's and from that moment on I found the idea of them together irresistible, but irresistible needed a vehicle… and so "The Constant" began.

I want to thank all of you especially who responded to Cassie and Gwen Winters. So often when you need to introduce your own characters into something as dynamic as "24" it fails miserably, looks sappy, or comes off badly for a number of reasons.

We knew Jack was going to need a shrink but Chloe and Jack needed a catalyst, and Cassie was born. She never was intended to be the major story element she became but she took over and wrote herself, and found her place and I think "she" did it well. She was the one character who I constructed from beginning to end, from working at night to speaking Japanese so that she would have a function and make a necessary contribution on more than a substitute for Chloe in Jacks mind. She's been a chore and a joy!  I hope some of you might have a moment somewhere in Day 6 when you wonder when Chloe's loud, funny, tough sister will show up and then remember she won't. I leave her behind with much regret. Never having done comedy before, she was a challenge from which I gained much and I'll miss her.

So… all that said, dear friends and readers… here begins the last chapter of "The Constant". Forgive the delay holidays and work and the desire to end with the quality I hope you expect from me made this last longer than I hoped.

To Kiefer and Mary Lynn, thanks so much for the chemistry, even if, for now, it's only over a comm.

The Constant:

Epilogue

It had taken a day to figure out that Chloe O'Brian's apartment was too small for two people, even with Jack having nothing more to bring to their cohabitation than the clothes he had bought while staying with Audrey. Yet the other immediate alternative had required a long night of consideration for Jack Bauer.

He had laid in the small bed and stared at the wall, aware of little more than Chloe embracing him from behind and saying nothing as the night wore on, offering no opinion and not wanting to do so, trusting that Jack would accept her neutrality.

In the years since her father had allegedly been dead the first time Kim Bauer had used her childhood home as a lucrative source of income, leasing it out to business clientele and mid-level government bureaucrats who wouldn't be there long enough to feel the need to redecorate. She had ordered the estate agent to be extremely careful, selecting only those who could afford a stiff security deposit and would sign a waver against damage.

Jack Bauer stood in his former living room with an understandably shaken expression, troubled more by what hadn't changed than what little had. Clad in jeans and a navy pullover, he took a slow look around and then climbed the stairs, Chloe tagging silently behind him, not intruding as memories called to him from every corner, an unsettling amalgam of comforts and regrets. In one room there were still pictures on the wall, a storage room that had stayed locked to every tenant. Chloe stood back as he made his way slowly down the wall, his hand brushing the glass in each frame, his gaze moving in and out of focus as he maneuvered around boxes of other items with which Kim had been unable to part. He left the room after several minutes, retrieving only one photo from the wall, remembering when he had clutched it to his chest and slept the intermittent sleep of the damned for months. Chloe said nothing as he shut the door and locked it again.

They came, at last, to the master bedroom. The king-sized bed was made, the woven light green spread touching the floor; the pale walls reflected the late morning sun filtering in through the closed blinds, but beyond that there was a Spartan aura to the room, one that spoke of lives lived in transition. Jack sat down on the side of the bed, his eyes taking in the stark contrast of Chloe, wearing black pants and a dark red sweater, standing in the doorway, not having followed him in here. His expression of confusion was quickly replaced by one of understanding and appreciation of her respect for this last sanctuary. Her head was down; the toes of the boot on her right foot tapping the tan carpet; she seemed about to take a retreating step but looked up before she did, a smile twitching across her face when their eyes met; Bauer automatically extended his right hand, the other still clutching the photo in his lap. She closed the distance between them and took it in both her own, still saying nothing even when he leaned forward and rested his head against her side. She freed one hand and drew her fingers through his hair, not moving until he looked up at her several minutes later, disbelief at his own words in his eyes as he spoke. "I'm glad she's not here, glad she never had to deal with what happened or had to see what's become of Kim and me."

Chloe's gaze narrowed slowly and she dropped down to her knees in front of him. "Jack, most of the things that happened were out of your control. The ones that were, well, you always tried to do the right thing for everybody else, the country, CTU, … me. I mean, I think sometimes I shouldn't have called you that day Palmer was killed. I'd figured out they were killing everybody who knew you were alive, that maybe I was bait, and I called you anyway, so this was more my fault than anybody's." Tears crept slowly out of the corners of her eyes and back toward her ears as she looked up at him, her lips making a familiar twist.

Jack sighed thinly and shook his head, "They knew I was alive, Chloe. It was already too late, and if I hadn't saved you, I would've had no one, especially no one to trust. They would have just drawn me out some other way, cost more people their lives. Trust me; I had time to think all this through. I was trying hard to find someone to blame but that isn't you."

Chloe frowned and accepted the truth, then turned it back on him. "Well, counts for you, too, okay? … and Kim will come around. She's getting older, Jack. Her life'll get more complicated. She'll start having to make choices herself that aren't easy; she'll understand more then."

A slow look of relief slowly relaxed his features. "I never thought of it like that."

"You think of her first as your little girl, Jack. You can't help it."

He looked away then, knowing that he hadn't at least once, remembering what it had felt like when his daughter had taken a firm hand with him in the safehouse, calming him when he'd first seen her, how the beating of her heart had eased him to sleep as his panic faded. Chloe was probably right and as much as he wanted Kim's life to be easy, he knew there was no escaping its complications, and that those complexities might well bring her closer to him. His mood far lighter, he suddenly looked down to catch O'Brian's eyes again. "You looked around. Do you want to stay here?"

Chloe came to her feet and after one more uncertain smirk, pausing for a few seconds more before she sat down on the bed Bauer had shared with his wife for so long. "I don't know, Jack. It doesn't matter to me. It has to be okay with you. I mean, and I know this sounds like I'm just a dumb geek but as long as I can have a workroom and a secure connection, I'm okay. Of course, you have an actual kitchen so maybe I can learn to cook."

"And CTU has a list of domestic servants we're supposed to be able to trust."

Chloe's lips twisted. "Yeah, but we won't and… I don't want them in my workroom." A look of dull surprise slackened O'Brian's face a few moments later as the small, lopsided smile on Bauer's face made her realize what she had said. "Okay, I guess I said 'yes' as long as you're okay with this but if you want to look for somewhere else that's good, too. We'll just tell the real estate agent I'll do all the finance work beca--." The kiss cut her off as Bauer took advantage of her mouth still being open, pulling her back on top of him and reaching up to put the framed photo he was still holding face-down on the headboard. Finding herself suddenly straddling him, Chloe sat up across his hips and settled herself down more firmly. A blush reddened her smirk. "Gee, I guess you are okay with this."

Not quite turning his mind over to his body's demands just yet, Bauer held himself still a few seconds more. "Teri would have wanted me to be happy, Chlo, and you're the example my daughter needs. You took care of me, you accepted me. I'm going to be selfish for the first time in a long time: I want you to come home with you; I want to find you here at night."

Chloe's smile twisted further as she gathered his hands and gently kissed his fingers, a look of false innocence on her face as she ground her pubic bone against him. "I don't think that's all you want."

He moved then, lifting her off him and turning on his side, "I told you, I'm in a selfish mood. Right here, right now, I want to start again, honor what Teri wanted for me."

Chloe gave it up then, her lingering worry that he was simply grateful for her help over the past few months, blinded by the intensity of their time together, his former dependence, and Audrey's reactions and departure. If Jack Bauer was finally indulging in a bit of selfishness Chloe O'Brian was perfectly happy to serve as a facilitator again, amongst other things. She reached down, stroking the firmness between his legs and feeling her own body surge with energy again when the low groan escaped him.

Jack pulled her hand away regretfully, impatiently helping her out of her sweater and then twisting out his own, as he did he smiled to feel her fingers working at his fly. He pulled the sweater free of his head to then see the fingers that had so often worked their magic to save him snake their way down his stomach and hook into the waistband of his trousers. Chloe pulled them past his hips and half way down his thighs as Bauer rolled on top of her, laughing when he felt her still booted foot insert itself between his legs to push them the rest of the way off him.

Chloe sat back, smirking, and folded up her legs one at a time, wedging off her boots, then her pants and letting them drop, feeling Bauer's fingers against the arch of her back as he unhooked the clasp of her bra. She yanked it off eagerly when he succeeded and tossed it to the floor as well, turning back and stretching herself overtop of him. His mouth was waiting for her, his tongue sliding between her lips as his hand slid under the edge of her panties and between the slick walls of warm flesh preparing themselves for him. Chloe growled and flexed her hips down as his finger entered her, sliding her hands beneath his shoulders to pull herself down onto him more tightly, her breasts firm and provocative against his chest. She tightened down on his finger and he slid two into her when she relaxed. Chloe groaned eagerly when he did and then slowly inserted her thigh between his legs, parting them to return the favor, to find his erection tensed almost painfully against his briefs. She pulled herself up and off of his hand reluctantly, writhing quickly out of her panties when she realized his readiness. She pushed off him slightly as she did and suddenly put her own needs on hold as she looked down at him, her tongue caught in her teeth.

Jack Bauer opened his eyes and pulled himself up on his elbows, about to ask her if something was wrong he saw that she was biting at a smile and simply watching him. He swallowed twice before turning on his side toward her and sitting up as well, acutely aware of the briefs that were still constricting him. "Chlo'?"

O'Brian leaned forward to kiss him quickly, touching his chest and taking the back of his neck in her hand. "Everything's fine. It's just that… you've been through so much… I just want this to be perfect for you. I want this to be what you want, so I thought I'd stop and ask and, believe me,… that wasn't easy."

Jack laughed softly at the look on her face but the rest of what she'd said had touched him enough that it took him a moment to understand his own reaction, to wonder at the feeling of a gentle hand constricting his heart in his chest. A momentary sting heated his eyes, a prelude to the tears that escaped down his cheeks. He didn't brush them away, enjoying the strange sensation of tears brought on by happiness, tears that slid over the smile parting his lips. "It doesn't matter, Chlo'; that you even thought to ask makes more perfect whatever happens." Bauer sat still for a long moment then leaned forward and kissed her slowly, shaking as he gently took her face in both hands.

O'Brian kissed him in return, her hands finally reaching for the waistband of his briefs. He arched off the bed as she slid them down, hissing with relief when the pressure was gone, at least that aspect, from between his legs. He bent his knees and she pulled his shorts away completely, tossing their one last article of clothing to the floor. Settling back beside him, her hand returned to stroke the feverish underside of his erection, then used the pad of her thumb to slowly circle the seemingly paper-thin skin at the tip. Jack nearly came just by her doing so and she drew her hand back slowly when he began to gasp, taking in the sight of him as she hadn't been able to before now, glad that she was facing him this time as her hand teased his scrotum with feather-light touches. Spasms ran through his hips each time she ran her thumb across the hypersensitive head of his shaft, now slick with pre-cum, its flesh tight and gleaming.

A fine sheen of sweat coated Bauer's face; his eyes were closed, and the hand he was leaning on had twisted into the pale green bedclothes. He hung on for a moment more and then turned toward her, his eyes so intensely bright and clear that O'Brian's jaw fell open when their gazes locked. She followed his hands without thinking when he came to his knees then sat back, guiding her over his shaft and letting her take him at her own pace.

Chloe eased herself down onto Jack Bauer slowly and gently, not for the sake of her own readiness, but to make this new experience for them both last as long as possible. Jack bit his lip, his thighs and buttocks trembling, fighting the urge to drive himself into her. Eager as he was, he wanted it to last himself. When he was at last completely cradled within her, his hips convulsed and his head fell onto her shoulder, then a tremor passed through him that drew a sharp gasp from the woman. Humbled and touched that he was so affected, Chloe gave him a moment to adjust to his new situation then lifted his head in both hands and waited for him to open his eyes. As he did she slowly but firmly tightened her most intimate grasp on him. Jack bit his lip and grinned, gripping her shoulders as he worked to drive himself even more deeply into her, his head pushing back against the strong fingers laced through his hair, his eyes closing.

Chloe groaned happily at his efforts but leaned forward, her breasts pressing against him as she gasped for breath. "I want to see you. I want to see this happen. Open your eyes, Jack. Look at me. Look at me. Let me in."

Bauer took an unsteady breath and obeyed her, fighting to keep his eyes open when she made her next move. She lifted her hips as he retreated for the next thrust, clamping down on his shaft and moving against him as if she could force his swollen member into herself more deeply yet. Bauer cried out softly and would have thrown his head back again save that her hands were preventing him, forcing him to remain where he could look into her eyes.

Jack Bauer let himself drown in confusion again, not knowing what source of pleasure was touching him the most, Chloe moving gently against him, forcing him to a slow rhythm to prolong their experience, or the fact that seeing his pleasure was more important to her than her own. She hadn't taken her eyes off him as her hands gently forced him to face her, was still looking him in the eye when they finally quickened their pace, steadily losing themselves in one another as their climax built. Jack held onto her, gripping her arms as he so often had in the throes of other less pleasant dreams; his breath hoarse and ragged as he came, his eyes never leaving O'Brian's as he erupted within her and expended himself,. His head fell to her shoulder when she finally released him and allowed herself to come now that she'd seen him do the same. His name torn from her throat caused Bauer to unexpectedly spasm one last time before his eyes rolled back, his vision blackened, and the strength literally and figuratively drained from him. He fell boneless toward her, her legs wrapping around him as they fell to the bed.

When Jack Bauer was aware of anything else again, they were flat on the bed, the spread drawn lightly over them. Chloe lay by his side, propped on her elbow, her arm around his head, smiling lopsidedly as she carefully worked the heel of her other hand across his abdomen to ease the lingering cramps. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead and he turned in her direction, eyes still closed as he drew in her scent, a thin sigh passing his slightly parted lips as a weakness he remembered and welcomed continued to tax his regained strength. The emotion of it overtook him as the physical aspect of their joining ended and Bauer didn't resist the tears that stung his eyes for a moment, and then pooled beneath them before sliding down his temples into his hair. His throat relaxed enough to speak as he responded to O'Brian gently hushing him, felt her hand stroke his chest and her lips draw gently at his eyelids. "I… I thought about being with you… thought about this happening ever since I realized I was still able. I was dreaming about you when that happened, Chloe. I knew it would embarrass you when I put your hand on me but I had to know I was awake, that it was real."

Chloe's hand moved down between his legs again, her fingers stroking him gently, intended only to reassure. "You didn't really embarrass me, Jack. I was just happy for you, now…," she sighed and waited till he opened his eyes before offering him a teasing smile, "now, I guess, I can be happy for both of us."

Bauer was still laughing quietly as her mouth claimed his. When she pulled back, he pouted slightly but drifted back to sleep when she told him she would return in a few minutes. The world became dark and pleasant and warm, and remained so even when he turned and the thin, cotton coverlet fell away from him.

Chloe returned as she promised, smiling at the sight of Jack Bauer's slender form stretched out naked on the bed he had shared only with his wife until now, no longer buried in covers he was terrified would be torn away or that hid the torments inflicted on him, content to sink further into the post-coital abyss. Unable to stop herself, and having no reason to, she sat down on the bed and, with lingering disbelief, slowly ran her hands over his sleeping form, her strokes barely detectable as she gave herself over to the thoughts and feelings she had held back for so long. Her hands and her scent familiar, Jack didn't stir as she gently convinced herself, tears drifting from her eyes… simply that he was real. In the end, it seemed as if she'd left no part of him without the lingering warmth of her touch and satisfied, she at last leant over him to wake him with an apologetic kiss. A hand on his bare hip, the woman eased him onto his back and parted his lips with gentle fingers, her tongue and mouth taking their place until she felt him respond. "Can you do that every morning?" He muttered, his eyes half-open.

"Only if you earn it the night before," Chloe snapped, her smile predictably twisting. "In the meantime, come here." She tugged him upright with experienced hands, covering his eyes as she led him to a bathroom once again, then revealing to him the sight of a tub filled with bubbles and a pair of black candles lit on the windowsill. He lowered his head to hers as he had the first time she had brought him to the bath in the safehouse and followed her as she stepped in and sat down, pulling him with her. Jack followed her lead, still pleasantly groggy, as she turned him and guided him to lie between her legs in the steaming water. She stroked his forehead with her chin as his weight settled against her and wrapped her arms around him.

Jack Bauer drifted back toward sleep again, wondering hazily at the irony as he rested in the embrace of the warm and comforting fluid, at rest between the legs of a woman he trusted more than any other soul, and realized he had been given yet another chance at life, only this time as himself.

XXXXXXXXX

They stood out against the dark wood of the court room walls, five figures that Jack Bauer now realized were smaller than himself, each wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, their heads shaved except for the woman. It was the first time Bauer had seen her face when it wasn't painted white, something he realized had been done only to add to his disorientation and fear as she had driven the needles into him or snatched them out. They'd all seen much larger then, when his perspective had either been crippling sickness or looking up as he lay bound to the table. Only the "doctor" had met his eye as they were escorted past him; the sound of their chains striking the wooden floor echoed through the wood and marble confines of the courtroom as they moved.

Bauer stood apart from the five people who were with him, an unbowed figure in a dark suit. Even if they didn't look him in the eye, he knew they were aware of him as they passed, four walking and the woman in a wheelchair; he could feel their defeat, the resentment, and most familiar of all, their sense of helplessness as the rest of their lives was stripped from them, as those in their government who had issued their orders gave them up to a joyless living death that would last for decades. The woman was still bandaged from the explosion of the transport van weeks ago, one side of her face scarred by the accelerant-driven fire. While the rest were sent to Gitmo, its sparse accommodations for women meant she had been sent to the Federal prison in Leavenworth, not that it had made any difference. He hadn't been their first victim, certainly, nor would have been their last; he stood for the rest as the one for whom they were finally paying.

Jack remained frozen until they were gone and then felt his breath leave him. He forgot to take the next until a small hand touched his back. He hadn't taken his eyes off O'Brian during the first part of his testimony at the closed hearing but his eyes had left her more and more as he'd spoken, his voice steady but gruff as he recalled for the judge the tortures he had suffered and identified the five of his captors who had survived the sinking of the Shanghai. Jack turned to look down at the woman beside him. Chloe O'Brian suddenly seemed a bit smaller as well, but then he'd spent a lot of his time looking up at her, too. He took the hand that had been on his back as he turned, clutching it briefly as he looked into the eyes of the woman who had guided him through the literal and figurative nightmares of the past several months and now stood with him again as they left one more behind, this one for good.

Chloe O'Brian, in turn, looked up at Jack Bauer, watching another small burden fall from him, tightening strong fingers against his now firm grip. "Let's get the hell out of here."

The late afternoon Southern California sunlight, especially in fall, was unrelenting, made more so by the visage of white marble around the figures walking slowly down the steps of the Federal District Court House on North Spring Street. This time nothing had gone wrong, not one shot had been fired, not one hand raised in conflict, not one more life lost in the execution of justice. Three white vans turned the corner of the tree-lined boulevard, headed in the opposite direction of the six people who had now reached the street then turned and for a long moment paused to look up at the white columned building and the small group of flags before it.

Bill Buchanan tapped the key fob and opened the locks of the SUV, climbing in and listening to the others joining him. He looked back to see Jack and Chloe in the middle seat and Cassie Gibson's long form bent awkwardly on one knee fussing over how to get the seatbelt around the sling on Curtis Manning's arm. Only by virtue of working with the latter man for so long did he know that Manning was not merely allowing but enjoying the attention. Buchanan offered a hidden smile to the sharp-eyed blond woman in the seat beside him, thinking about how much he had missed Karen Hayes in the past several months. She shook her head a fraction and turned back, making clear her amusement with the younger generation behind them. Buchanan started the car as soon as Gibson was belted in herself, her long legs stretched out between Jack and Chloe's seat. As the sunset began out over the ocean, he turned on to Pacific Coast Highway and headed north, finally stopping in Santa Monica, at a restaurant perched on a cliff overlooking the water. They refused the valet parking and stood watching the end of the sunset, Cassie happily hanging back away from the railing that separated the parking lot from the edge of the cliff.

They were escorted to a small private room, hidden by a heavy red curtain that cut off the noise from the rest of the restaurant. The maitre'd closed it only to have Buchanan open it again and restore their view of the rest of the diners while Curtis waved some device around that beeped and flashed a green light before he returned it to his pocket. Buchanan took his seat across from Karen Hayes and next to Gibson, his eyes on her as he fooled with the linen napkin. "I've been here a few times before. You'd think they'd learn I don't like the privacy drape drawn."

"And the other things was to… scan for listening…?"

"Exactly."

Gibson's lower lip disappeared between her teeth as she shook her head and looked them each in the eye. "My life used to be so safe and dull… and simple."

Across the table from her, Jack Bauer saw the glint that only her sister saw otherwise. "You're still a cop to the rest of world yet. It's not too late."

The sarcastic smile faded as she met the bright, intense eyes of the man facing her, becoming a look of near apology when her gaze moved to the woman beside him. "Sometimes it's too late the first time. I started this; people put their lives on the line because of it. If I back out now, I'm nothing."

A fierce pout blew up the sides of Chloe O'Brian's face, only the whites of her eyes were visible for the next few seconds. "Mom is gonna' kill me. First she's a cop, now she's a cop and works with CTU."

Gibson shrugged, her sense of duty quickly hidden for her sister's benefit behind the perfected veneer of humor. "So, let's get Mom clearance and make her head of Interrogation."

The waiter interrupted the banter and his departure left a change in mood as the longer wait for dinner began. Karen Hayes, having seen Jack Bauer only briefly before the hearing, was studying him carefully but covertly in the reflection of the knife blade. He was trading small talk mostly with Curtis, Chloe, and the strapping detective, politely including Hayes as she was seated beside him but remaining unaware of her scrutiny or benignly accepting that he would be under a certain amount of it. After all, the last time she'd seen him before today, he'd been in CTU Medical, unable to even understand he was there or even safe. Karen traded small talk of her own with Buchanan but he kept it very small indeed, well aware that she was watching Jack Bauer and making her assessments. Winters releasing him for light duty and Colson's further reports were all fine on paper but there were some aspects of judging people that she still preferred to leave to her thirty years of experience. The topic of the apparently imposing mother of Detective Gibson and Agent O'Brian had passed, migrating – as it would inevitably to work, to the dangerous world around them that never ceased to provide job security.

Hayes waited for a pause in the conversation, some technicality of arrest warrants issued by CTU versus those issued by the LAPD and let Jack feel her gaze upon him for the first time. He turned to her slowly, his eyes never resting on her face for more than a few moments. For someone who was capable of the things he had done, the man could seem amazingly withdrawn at times. Jack returned the smile that pinned him, however, his expression calm and strangely resigned, as if he knew what was on her mind already. Behind him, O'Brian and the detective were happily having at each other over something beyond arrest warrants and he took the opportunity to focus on the older woman.

"I don't remember thanking you for coming here today."

Hayes gently pulled on the silver necklace that had been laying over her pale pink blouse. "You did, when I surprised you at the court house. I thought someone coming in directly from Washington to witness the proceedings might wipe any thought of leniency from the judge's mind. I wanted him to know the people who believe in this government, the way it should be, appreciated what you had been through." She paused but shook her head when he took a breath to speak. "I also wanted to tell you I was glad Martha Logan brought Gwen Winters in for you; she only sees six to ten actual patients in a year, Jack, but it only took Martha telling her about what you'd been through on the day Charles was arrested and since then for her to agree to help you."

Jack looked into his beer glass and nodded. "I know I wouldn't be here without her. I never thought I could trust someone that fast with what I'd been through and what I had at stake. She found the one person I trusted without a question and went from there."

"I watched some of the things that Agent O'Brian did for you the day Logan went down, and found out about a few of them later." She smiled and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Needless to say I wasn't surprised when the report came back that she was facilitating for Doctor Winters." Hayes took a sip of the glass of white wine she had ordered and watched the small smile fade from his face. "Important and appreciated as that all was, Jack, it's something that you've put behind you to a great degree. No pressure now, I know you and Chloe are just settling in to your home, but I was wondering if you'd given any thought to your plans going forward. I know you don't want field operations and after what's been done to you, there's no one who doesn't understand that or who'd expect it, but if you have a position in mind at CTU or elsewhere, well, I'd be privileged to act as your facilitator on that count. The U.S. Government is at your disposal, but if you're inclined to go to the private sector, Bill and I will give you the highest recommendation possible and without regret. I'm not asking this of you, Jack – you've given your country too much already – I'm asking it for you so that you can determine what you want and be free to do it."

Jack sighed and loosened his tie, mostly as a stall, remembering fleetingly his second to last conversation with Audrey where his choices had all been made for him. His eyes went involuntarily to Gibson who sensed the mood on him and tuned the others out, not to eavesdrop but to offer help if he wanted it. She kicked her sister under the table. Chloe bit off her response to being kicked when she caught her sister's eye and she turned her attention to Jack. Suddenly realizing he was now the center of attention, Bauer looked at all of the friends around him, sensing their love and their unconditional support for the man he had been and whomever he might next chose to be. Between their chairs, his hand sought O'Brian's and found it already reaching for his.

"God, I hate speeches." A blur of gentle laughter moved around the table and Bauer felt a blush darken his skin. "First thing's first, though, I suppose." Bauer's eyes dropped to the surface of the table, then lifted to the flame of the dark candle burning there, "One of the worst things they did to me – on the ship, was to make me feel helpless. It's strange to feel that way now but I do, because I feel helpless to thank any of you enough. Curtis, you were the first clue I had that any of it was over." He looked up then, looking Manning in the eye and weakly returning his smile. Next to him, Cassie Gibson was making no effort to stem the tears that had begun to flow down her otherwise calm face. Jack never took his eyes off her as he shook his head. "… and you. I didn't even know you – only for a day, but you knew how to give me my strength back then you taught me I could still laugh."

Gibson held his gaze for a long moment, then glanced over at the woman to his left. "And you… you gave me back the baby sister I thought I'd never be real with again." She reached out a calloused hand and Bauer took it briefly before he turned his attention to Buchanan and Karen Hayes.

"And the two of you gave them everything they needed, the backing, the authority, the resources, did everything you could to find me alive." Buchanan offered him no more than a slow, dismissive smile that Bauer knew he meant he wasn't about to trust himself to speak. Karen Hayes, however, took his hand.

"In perspective, Jack, what you did and what you withstood because of your dedication to this country outweighs anything any of us have done here. If you'll do me one last service, I want you to work on accepting that. Once I understood what was happening, I'd never felt so privileged to work with another agent in my life."

Jack lowered his head again but this time only for a moment, and turned at last to Chloe O'Brian who had been waiting, whether in dread or anticipation he didn't' quite know, for her turn. She didn't lift her eyes when Bauer drew a breath to speak and suddenly felt him tilt her chin up so that he could see her face. "And you, these people may have saved my life, but you made me want to start living it again."

Chloe O'Brian let her chin remain in his hand but her eyes still avoided them all and in the end she simply took the hand from beneath her face and, unlike her sister, wiped away the tears as they flowed toward an embarrassed smile. She poked Bauer in the ribs after a moment and a familiar smirk reasserted itself. "I guess, but, uhm, maybe now you should tell them the other stuff, okay?'

Jack turned from her and nodded. They'd compromised. He'd thanked her in public and she'd not bolted from the room. It was time to deal with the rest. "Well, I guess you've all been wondering where I'm going now that you've gotten me this far. I learned something besides that I could defend myself again when I was with Cassie, I learned I'm a good teacher. Bill, if you would, I want the paperwork telling me what steps I need to take to instruct for CTU. I'm not committing myself but I think that might be the best way I can contribute from now on, if you'll have me."

Buchanan smiled thinly, his eyes kinder than Bauer had ever remembered them. "They'll be on your desk in the morning. Take your time, Jack. This has to be about you, though, and not CTU. You don't owe us a thing."

Curtis lifted up the beer glass before him and held it up in a small salute. "But, you know, the idea of a bunch of Junior Jack Bauers out there might scare the world back in line."

XXXXXXX

It was the last thing he expected to see in the remote suburbs of Chicago but there they were, lunging after one another, barking, tongues hanging as they fought happily over a twisted red Frisbee. There were at least six of them, perhaps eight and then the ninth appeared, a black and tan streak that came from behind the pack and darted back across the long driveway with a bit of red added to the blur of color. Jack Bauer's head turned to follow the dog until the snow trimmed bushes intruded on the view.

Chloe stopped the car as the rest of the pack crossed back over the driveway, too absorbed in reclaiming the toy from the brawny thief to pay attention to the sedan approaching their flank. She looked over to see Jack smiling, his eyes searching the snow-painted forest a moment more before turning in her direction. "That was Todomachi. We must be here."

Chloe nodded and reached into the back seat, pulling a stuffed bloodhound out of a bag on the floor in back. "It's kind of a tradition, well, it is a tradition, everyone is supposed to bring a dog, real if you have it. It's a pain in the ass for some of them but we all do it. Cassie took the train a couple days ago."

Jack leaned forward, straining to see further down the snow-covered driveway that snaked through the stands of trees as Chloe started the car moving again. She took a last hairpin bend and suddenly it was there, a sprawling three story farmhouse that had once been a round-roofed barn. Six cars were pulled up out front and one gray minivan. Snow coated the roof and icicles gleamed in the watery sunlight along the eaves of the light green house, looming over the three-car garage. A wreath of pine cones hung on the dark green door, the silver ribbon running through it competing with the sunlight. Framed by evergreens, smoke drifting from the wide chimney, the farmhouse looked as if it hosted Thanksgiving dinners 365 days out of the year.

Chloe stopped the car again and, with a crooked smile, pointed to a now leafless oak fifty yards to the south of the house. "That's where I grew up."

Jack looked at the massive tree and tried to imagine her climbing it now, laptop bag hung over her shoulder. "Never got around to building a fort?"

"Didn't need to, halfway up the tree pretty much has its own. I probably still have stuff left up there." She snorted a laugh and finished going down the rest of the driveway, pulling into the empty space next to the house inside the garage. As she threw the rental into 'park', Jack reached into the back seat and retrieved their coats. They left the car and began to struggle into them when Jack stopped and threw his over his arm. Chloe started to say something and stopped, realizing that chasing him into his coat was something she never would have done to Jack before, not when they had to do no more than pull out two suitcases and go no more than five yards to get into the house. He regretted he hadn't put the coat on a split second later, a patch of darker blue forming on his shirt where the snowball had caught him across the chest.

Jack flinched back from the impact and looked for the culprit, unsurprised to see Cassie Gibson peeking around the side of the wide doorway, her presence betrayed by her own giggling and the sudden appearance of a massive German Shepherd carrying a Frisbee. She stepped out, hands raised and grinning. "Not exactly an L.A. weapon but I manage."

Jack was about to answer when Todomachi snaked past her and leapt up to greet him, leaving wet paw prints before Jack could pull him down. He nonetheless continued to pet him, muttering with good-natured aggravation that he was certainly his mother's dog as the sound of Chloe laughing reached his ears.

"You didn't fly up here?"

"Fly requires up, Kiddo. I don't even like being six feet tall some days. Besides, it's easier to….train a dog." She grinned viciously at the pained expression that crossed Bauer's face at her twist on words. "How the hell'd you guys get here so fast from O'Hare?"

Chloe came around the back end of the rental car, grinning herself. "We didn't. We landed a really small airport about eight miles away. We rented a plane and… Jack flew us here." The rare grin became a childish smirk as she looked up at her sibling. "Guess what? I got to see the sunrise from the sky." She moved over next Bauer then and took his hand as he came to his feet.

Cassie huffed out a breath that frosted the air before her and tossed her head. "First Martha Logan, now private planes and sunrises, you're spoiling my little sister, Jack Bauer, about time someone did."

"I'm in a generous mood, though.. Fly back with us, Todomachi, too."

Cassie shook her head dismissively. "I don't fly, Fly-Boy, remember? Give me a gun, a perp and an abandoned building, then I get brave."

Jack regarded her for a moment more, then folded his arms and slouched a hip against the car. "I can change your mind."

"I can still beat you up."

Jack gave her a thin smile. "It's different if you're in control. You got me over my fear, I'll teach you to fly."

Cassie stared at him a moment more and then felt it happening, the niggling of doubt that worked its way into the back of her mind, jutting toward her as his hand had done on the cliff overlooking the Los Angeles. "Okay… maybe. Maybe, but you'll have to get me drunk to get me on board first." With a final shake of her head, Gibson took his coat from him and retrieved the suitcase on his side from the back of the rental car, carrying it inside the house, leaving him free to take Chloe's bag from her as she came around the back of the car. The galloping dogs, a mix of breeds but all of them large, were now charging about the front yard, barking and kicking up snow. Jack stopped to watch them, smiling when he watched the full-sized, mud-spattered sheepdog running behind the others and herding them forward. The cold slowly asserted itself through the wet fibers of his shirt, however, and he welcomed Chloe's hand as she pushed him forward with an expression of sudden irritation.

"Get moving, Jack."

He followed her up the stairs and let her open the outer door for him. Cassie had left the inner one open, a heavy oaken slab that hung from hand crafted hinges. Before his eyes had even adjusted to the interior darkness of the small foyer, the smell of baking bread and the sound of men's laughter came from the series of rooms before them. The hallway that led away from the foyer was long and straight, stairways angled away from it at either end. As the men quieted, they could hear the sounds of feminine chatter from the kitchen. Jack closed the door behind them and stood looking around at the rustic and welcoming interior. He'd never imagined Chloe as the country type but he also suspected the décor was more choice than a reflection of lifestyle. Most of the vehicles that had local plates were those of city dwellers.

Footsteps on the nearest stairway caused both Jack and Chloe to turn. Cassie reappeared sans her coat, dressed in a blue and gray sweater and jeans. "Come on, Mom's got the rooms all arranged. We're a little tight this year though so you're on the third floor in back but the view is great. You know the one I mean, Monk'." Before he could say a word, Gibson took the second suitcase from Bauer, then bossed their coats from them both and vanished back up the narrow wooden stairs.

The noises of family erupted around them again, the men all shouting at the same time, some cheering, some cursing. Jack realized they were watching football along with several million other Americans and wondered vaguely who was playing. He'd find out later; there was one thing he had to do first now that he was here, one curiosity he had to settle before any other. He looked down at the woman beside him and smiled. "I thought they'd be all over us."

Chloe shrugged, unable to miss the fact that he looked more than a little relieved. He'd figure out at some point that Cassie had arranged for them not to be pounced on for his sake, probably after he met the deafening hordes. "No, not with a game on. I don't get it. I can do the math and tell them who the hell's gonna' win more than half the time. They don't like me in there any more, and I can't cook all that great, so I end up setting the table and doing dishes. At least Mom has a dishwasher now." She scowled without humor this time and reached for his hand, her bright red blouse adding to the sudden, slight blush darkening her ears, "Speaking of…, come on."

Jack grimaced at the fading wet spots on his shirt as he followed Chloe down the long hallway, her grip on his hand strangely tight, as if she'd had more than one significant other bolt from the presence of the woman he was about to meet. Chloe stopped before a huge set of double doors, once again on home-crafted hinges and carved insets. With a final huff, Chloe pushed it open.

The dining room past the door looked like a mid-sized restaurant set for a private party, gilt silverware gleamed on the table and a dozen, unlit, red candles ran its length. There were three women in the room, one younger than Chloe but vaguely resembling her, a cousin likely, a petite older woman in a gingham dress, and a third who sat in a high-backed chair, with snow white hair styled far above her head and bright blue eyes that were piercing and wise even behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She was sorting through a stack of photographs, dividing them by some unknown criteria on an open spot on the table before her. The other two women stood on either side, almost as if in attendance. The seated woman looked up as soon as Chloe and Jack had cleared the doorway. She put down the photos and glanced at the other two who immediately nodded and headed out the door on the other side of the table, offering Jack curious and polite smiles. For all that they glanced in her direction, Chloe might not have existed. She didn't notice their passing either, her eyes on the woman at the end of the table in the blue and black trimmed suit. "Mom, this is Jack Bauer. Jack, this is my Mom, Gretchen Gibson."

Jack Bauer stepped forward as Chloe finished, extending his hand to a woman somewhere in her early seventies. She came to her feet, her steely eyes watching him carefully and distantly, openly assessing him even as she took his hand and didn't shake it, but held it in both her own. Jack simply stood facing her, not knowing what to expect but knowing for the first time in his life the meaning of the word 'matriarch'. This was a woman who had reckoned with the world and won without losing in herself all the things that made her human. It took her a moment but she suddenly smiled tightly at him, her lower lip pressing upward with approval.

"You are the man who saved my daughters' lives?"

Jack looked down at the white-haired woman with slight surprise when she spoke, her words thickened and slowed by a far more than lingering German accent. He wanted to dismiss her question, to answer it in a way that convinced her it had only been his job, instead he simply shrugged into the direct and unflinching eyes before him. "Yes."

Chloe sighed behind Bauer and folded her arms, "Mom, you don—."

"Hush. I owe a debt to dis man. I vill talk to him as I please." Gretchen Gibson waved a cautioning finger. "Go or stay, Daughter, but hush."

Chloe's eyes dropped to the floor after a helpless look in Jack's direction, a helpless look from a woman who had defied CTU for him, who had defied the very laws she was supposed to uphold. She screwed up her face and sat down, unable to stop whatever her mother was about to say, her eyes on the ground as her Gretchen Gibson directed Jack into a carved, wooden dining room chair while she remained standing, still smiling at him, her eyes becoming distant, however, a moment before she began to speak. "I don't believe my Chloe has told you vhat I am about to tell you but you already have reason to be thankful for it. It is vhat made my family what it is, vhat it will be till I die - no place for liars, no place for traitors." Jack Bauer sat unmoving, spellbound with curiosity and silent as Gretchen Gibson continued looking down at him, her gaze both stern and matronly.

"My father was a liar, Mr. Bauer, mostly he lied to himself, then lied to his family, and he lied to many, many others, a worthless man who stood by and betrayed hundreds of thousands of human beings, who herded them onto trains… to take them to their deaths. My mother found out and left him. She found her way through many dangers, and made a life for us here, in America. She made us make a promise to the world, to the humanity that my father betrayed, a promise to tell the truth, to serve a higher good, and if someone trusted us, to be worthy of it always. I raised my children to do the same and they now raise their children by that promise. From what little my daughter has told me of you, Jack Bauer, what her strange job allows, you are a man who has made that promise as well, for that as much as saving my daughters' lives, this house and the hearts here will always be open to you."

Jack looked up at the steady blue eyes taking him in and for the first time in his life, trusted a stranger completely moments after he met them, and along with the trust came an overwhelming sense of gratitude. He swallowed twice before he could speak, his eyes dropping to follow her as Gretchen Gibson reclaimed her seat. "I'm honored but I'm just as grateful. I often wondered why Chloe would do what she did for me, not just the past few months, but always, whenever I needed her. It seems I have you and your mother to thank for who she is."

Gretchen nodded slowly, her still sharp eyes studying him again. "You are a good man. You know what you do is needed but then punish yourself for it. I know vhat the greater good is, Mr. Bauer, and I remember that it was not easy to serve. My mother and I fled killers and my mother twice became one herself to save us and free us but there were few nights where she did not see their faces."

Jack nodded slowly, consumed with curiosity he would indulge in once he knew Gretchen Gibson better and what she was willing to share. "She must have been an extraordinary woman. She would have been proud of the women who've come after her."

Gretchen Gibson sighed, her expression softening for the first time. "She would have, but that doesn't make it any easier to have my children, to have my girls especially, follow her path, to face danger for justice. I know how I raised them, so some of it is my fault, no?" She smiled gently and then sobered. "You will do what you can to look after my daughter, Jack?"

The blond man nodded slowly, his arm going around Chloe's waist as she came to stand beside the chair. "Always, both of them, just like they have me."

Gretchen Gibson nodded, a smile warming the lines of her face again as she watched her daughter's arm encircled his shoulders. "I see you have made my Chloe happy as a woman, too."

"Mom, damn it!" A blush overcame Chloe O'Brian's face, darkening the embarrassed sneer that overtook her face, one that deepened she saw Jack was blushing slightly, too.

Gretchen Gibson's blue eyes sparkled. "Well, you have obviously learned better than to bring home another shoe salesman who wastes his mind, but…you… you need to feed this one better, fatten him up. I want grandchildren from my daughters."

Chloe's blush darkened further somehow and she pulled out of Jack's grasp to stand with her arms folded tightly over her stomach. "Well, then… tell Cassie to get pregnant." The words has no sooner left her mouth when the doors to the dining room finished opening, her sister standing between them with a rare look of shock upon her face, Curtis Manning unable to hide the grin as he stood behind her. Her astonishment faded into sisterly venom. She sighed angrily and didn't turn as she addressed him. 'Hey, Curtis, guess what? My sister's nickname is Monkey-Butt because growing up I saw more of her ass in a tree than her face."

A sound between a grunt and a scream erupted from Chloe O'Brian's throat. "Oh, that is so mature. Okay, fine! I'll play, Miss-First-Class-Clown-to-Run-Her-Own-Black-Panties-Up-the-Flagpole!"

"Uhm… well, those weren't mine but they got me four dates to the prom and two limos. How was the ride? I've heard those trunks are roomy."

Jack Bauer looked at the pair of them with an unfathomable mix of affection and amusement, his eyes bright when he looked at the beaming face of Gretchen Gibson as the exchange continued. He'd be proud to give her Chloe's grandchildren, proud if scared as hell. She smiled back at him as her daughters argued, a bit less loudly now that the others had started filtering in, most of them carrying large, steaming containers of food for the table. Last of all came a turkey large enough to feed the twenty odd people in the main room and a few more. Most of the men wearing team jerseys and already drinking beer; the women were dressed slightly more formally. Jack and Curtis found themselves the object of friendly but not fierce curiosity as Thanksgiving dinner progressed, Jack more so because it was the first time Chloe had shown up with a man since her short-lived marriage.

Presiding over the whole thing with the aura of a queen, Gretchen Gibson controlled her brood with an iron first wrapped in velvet, even somehow managing the clutch of dogs and children at a table in the next room. God knew what the carpet was going to look like but no one seemed worried. They were a loud crew, but happy to be together, begging stories from Cassie who was as happy talking as eating in any case. She kept them amused and drew their attention off Jack when she suspected it all might be too much for him yet. Gretchen Gibson, in turn, was less worried about her own plate than ensuring her younger daughter was making certain Bauer was more than well fed.

Three hours later, the dishes drying and stacked, they had retreated to the living room with its carpet of huge dogs and drowsy children, and a blazing fire. Of course, there weren't enough chairs, and Jack settled to the floor as had many of the men, tucking himself between Chloe's denim clad knees as they all shared drinks and told stories on each other for a few hours more. Ears apparently stinging from his mother's glib, ringing, happy chatter over his head, Todomachi trotted through the children and dogs to settle down with his huge head on Jack Bauer's leg. Jack stroked him absently, at home in a room filled mostly with strangers, suddenly fighting bouts of occasional distant fears that it was an illusion, that he should be terrified that it would all be taken away. In each moment of doubt, he tightened his grip on Chloe's knee and pressed himself against her more firmly until the moments passed, focusing on the fingers that never left his shoulders or the back of his neck.

It was Cassie, facing him across the large room, who saw Jack staring off into the distance when midnight passed. She came to her feet, stretching and making her way with careful steps through the tangle of now sleeping children and dogs who were serving a blankets and pillows. Only Todomachi had spared himself the indignity. She tugged the dog up by the collar and scuffed her fingers gently through Jack's hair as she leaned over him to hug her sister, glancing down at Bauer behind his head. "He's had it," she mouthed silently. Chloe nodded and kissed her sister's cheek. Cassie lingered in the room only long enough to kiss her mother good night and head up the stairs, Todomachi surging past her and Curtis following.

Chloe O'Brian came to her feet a few minutes later and Jack stood with her, his right hip aching slightly. He followed her out, nodding and waving as they said their good nights, saving the last of them for Gretchen Gibson who sent them off with a knowing smile. Jack followed the blond woman through the maze of halls and up two flights of stairs to the small room where Cassie had deposited their bags. They were there and waiting for them on the rustic-looking wooden table, the clothes even hung in the étagère. Outside the huge window in the back wall, Chicago was a scattering of yellowish lights in the distance and a light snow had once again begun to fall. The room also held the fireplace for the third floor. Everything they needed for it was there and Jack found it an irresistible temptation. He lit the stack of hardwood already in place and stepped back. He was still staring into the growing flames when his cell phone rang.

"Bauer."

"You're not on duty anymore, Dad. Try and relax a little."

Chloe looked up from rearranging the cushions, pillows, and blankets on the wide sofa when she heard a soft laugh come from Jack as he stepped closer to the window. "Where are you, Sweetheart?

"When did you get back?

"No, I haven't. We haven't. Why?

"I hope so, Honey. I'd like that.

"No, it's been… really nice."

"Thanks. Happy Thanksgiving to you."

Chloe put the last cushion into place and stood up, offering him a tired smile. "Kim?"

Jack Bauer offered her a tired smile of his own, but one with a touch of nervousness to it. "She said, she had to change her flights. She might, she's probably going to be in Los Angeles for Christmas now. She wanted to know if I'd, if we'd made plans."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Silly, even if we had we'd change them if Kim thinks she can be with you." Her grimace changed cause a moment later as she pointed at the wide couch. 'It's not a sofa bed," she snapped, more irritated with her mother than embarrassed. "It's kind of joke, Jack. We call this room the… well… crap… the honeymoon suite cause the only time you can send two people up here is when they'll sleep together, and it's got the fireplace and the big window. I mean, the joke was… Mom and Dad only used this room to… uh… anyhow, now we only use it when we have a houseful so I guess the joke was on me this year when they knew I was bringing somebody."

Jack closed on her as he unbuttoned his shirt. "Let them laugh. I'm glad its ours."

Chloe's smirk softened into a tight smile and she helped him out of his shirt the rest of the way, then stripped down to her underwear and sat down on the "bed". Jack took off his jeans and followed her, laying down first, resting against the soft brown material of the sofa back. Chloe reached up and turned off the lights then lay down beside him, forced into his arms to keep from falling off the sofa. She reached up and dragged the thick rose-colored blankets over them.

Their heads propped on one of the rearranged cushions, Chloe reached up to stroke his face as Bauer began to relax. "I'm sorry. I got so wrapped up in being back here and showing you off that Cassie had to tell me you were zoning out."

Jack captured the fingers drifting along his face and drew them to lips. "It's fine. I had you to hold onto just sometimes… too much of a good thing is still too much." Bauer's eyes suddenly lifted from the fingers he could barely see in the darkness, hoping she could see the smile on his face. "Did you just say showing me off?"

Chloe shrugged in his arms. "Yeah, I guess I did. Nobody ever thought I'd come home with a really sexy, handsome guy. I guess I never thought I would either." Despite her self-deprecating words, she was smiling as she pressed herself closer to him and Jack tightened his grip on her beneath the warmth of the blankets, his eyes going briefly to the fire across the room. He was exhausted, his ears were ringing, and the sense of unreality still lingered in the back of his mind as he lay against the back of the wide sofa with Chloe O'Brian where he had come to expect her, between him and the rest of the world. Her arm slid over his waist and as she pressed a gentle kiss to the bridge of his nose. "So, I guess I showed them all. The Monkey-Butt geek who got to come home with the hero."

Jack Bauer started to open his mouth, wanted to argue with her, had even taken a breath to do so when Chloe's lips moved down to capture his and deny him the opportunity. He sighed through his nose as their mouths joined and let the argument go, if he had Chloe O'Brian, then maybe he was a hero after all.


End file.
